Slowness rage is not confined to the sidewalk, of course. Slow drivers, slow Internet, slow grocery lines--they all drive us crazy. You too can measure yourself on the "Pedestrian Aggressiveness Syndrome Scale," a tool developed by University of Hawaii psychologist Leon James. While walking in a crowd, do you find yourself "acting in a hostile manner (staring, presenting a mean face, moving closer or faster than expected)" and "enjoying thoughts of violence?"
Slow things drive us crazy because the fast pace of society has warped our sense of timing. Things that our great-great-grandparents would have found miraculously efficient now drive us around the bend.
Patience is a virtue that's been vanquished in the Twitter age.
Once upon a time, cognitive scientists tell us, patience and impatience had an evolutionary purpose. They constituted a
yin and yang balance, a finely tuned internal timer that tells when we've waited too long for something and should move on. When that timer went buzz, it was time to stop foraging at an unproductive patch or abandon a failing hunt.
"Why are we impatient? It's a heritage from our evolution," says Marc Wittmann, a psychologist at the Institute for Frontier Areas of Psychology and Mental Health in Freiburg, Germany.
Impatience made sure we didn't die from spending too long on a single unrewarding activity. It gave us the impulse to act.
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