Modern life: it's one step at a time, only much quicker

The pace of life is speeding up: scientists have discovered that pedestrians all over the world are walking faster than a decade ago.

An experiment conducted in 32 cities has revealed that average walking speeds have increased by about 10 per cent since 1994. Psychologists said the findings reflected the way that technology such as the internet and mobile phones had made people more impatient, leading them to cram more and more activities into a day.

The steepest acceleration was found in Asian “tiger” countries such as China and Singapore, which have experienced particularly marked social and economic change.

Pedestrians in these nations walk between 20 and 30 per cent faster than they did in the early 1990s. Singapore has the quickest walkers in the world.

London was the fastest-paced British city, but finished only 12th in the final league table, behind supposedly more laid-back cities such as Copenhagen (2nd) and Dublin (5th). Edinburgh was 20th, and Cardiff was 31st, ahead only of Berne, the Swiss capital, Manama (Bahrain) and Blantyre (Malawi).

Richard Wiseman, a professor of psychology at the University of Hertfordshire, who led the study, said that the results were significant because walking speed was a good indicator of the pace of people’s lives.

Previous research by Robert Levine, of California State University, who measured walking speeds around the world in 1994, has shown that they are linked to other indicators of behaviour and even health. As people move faster they become less likely to help others, and also tend to have higher rates of coronary heart disease.

Professor Wiseman said: “While the effect of stress itself is actually quite small, what happens is that as people get more stressed and hurried they spend less time with their friends, they don’t have time to exercise, they eat poorly, and they drink and smoke more. It’s these factors that build up to cause the risk.”

The researchers repeated Professor Levine’s 1994 experiment, in which pedestrians were timed over a 60ft stretch of pavement. For the 16 countries featured in 1994 and 2006, the average time taken fell from 13.76 seconds to 12.49 seconds. In Singapore pedestrians took 10.55 seconds, compared with 31.60 seconds in Blantyre.

The results are detailed in Professor Wiseman’s new book, Quirkology, which is published on Friday.

Slow down?

Do you seem to glance at your watch more than others?

When someone takes too long to get to the point, do you want to hurry them along?

Are you often first to finish at mealtimes?

When walking along a street, do you feel frustrated because you are stuck behind others?

Would you become irritable if you sat for an hour with nothing to do?

Do you walk out of restaurants or shops if you encounter a short queue?

If you are caught in slow-moving traffic, do you seem to get more annoyed than other drivers?

Five or more “yes” responses mean you should take your foot off the accelerator