[mseebach]

> But are people losing their love of the purposeless walk?

BBC Magazine strikes again.

No, they're not losing it, it's not "slowly dying". Did "people" at large ever have that? Having the time and energy to go aimlessly wandering was a luxurious privilege until very recently. If anything, the existence of "[a] number of recent books [that] have lauded the connection between walking - just for its own sake - and thinking" would suggest that walking is enjoying a renaissance - this time for the masses.

> Many now walk and text at the same time. There's been an increase in injuries to pedestrians in the US attributed to this. One study suggested texting even changed the manner in which people walked.

> It's not just texting. This is the era of the "smartphone map zombie" - people who only take occasional glances away from an electronic routefinder to avoid stepping in anything or being hit by a car.

This is pure Marie Antoinette. 200 years ago, peasants would only glance up from their plows to avoid hitting a rock in the field, or whatever, and surely the savants of the time deplored that as well.

Here's a thought: Most people walking around in the city aren't out on an Dickensque intellectually stimulating aimless wander, they're not out to tread a deep mental path in the words of Thoreau, they are in transit between two places, we could vulgarly call them "work" and "home", and the transit bit is an undesired period of downtime. You'll have to be an intellectual to problematise their choice of filling that period with something else than romantic observation of the very same surroundings they look at twice daily for years.

[1782635782]

> Having the time and energy to go aimlessly wandering was a luxurious privilege until very recently

You just made this up....

Firstly, you have never been around since the beginning of humans, and secondly, you haven't even read any history books if you think humans have always been extremely busy and that somehow they are not now.

The opposite is actually true. Humans have had a lot more free time in the past. It is easy to find this information out on the internet. Humans were estimated to only work about 3 hours per day in some time periods. In others they had months at a time off.

[christophilus]

Yeah. A political scientist I know told me that at some points in Catholic history people had almost 1/3rd of the year off. I couldn't find a reference for that, but this site indicates about 1/4 of the year off as leisure time:

"Altogether there were about 80 days of complete rest with over 70 partial holidays, that is, about three months of rest spread over the year."

http://www.traditioninaction.org/History/A_021_Festivals.htm

Not sure about the veracity of that site, but that kind of leisure time is in keeping with much western history that I've read. Looking at a timeline, the Protestant work ethic seems to have played a pretty big role in shifting the work/leisure balance more towards work.

[mjmahone17]

In the modern day, most jobs have ~100 days of complete rest (weekends), plus about 6 bank holidays, and if you took your PTO as half days, another 20-30 days of partial rest (if you get 10-15 days of PTO). That's not quite as much (20 fewer partial days, or 10 days less of time off), but you also likely have some reasonable expectation of not being required to work more then ~10 hours per day, which wasn't necessarily true historically.

[antognini]

Unofficially, there was also good ol' Saint Monday.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Monday

[dalke]

A popular past time in the medieval era was to go on a pilgrimage. Something like 1/2 the population in some areas went on at least one pilgrimage in their lives.

[alexhawdon]

Absolutely. I recommend GP reads some Thomas Hardy to get a sense of what you mean. Back before the industrial revolution the lower classes would work 'enough' to sustain themselves.

[thomasahle]

You are both centering your argument about whether or not people used to walk more or less than they do now. You are not presenting any more evidence than BBC did.

[hugh4]

The BBC are the ones writing the damn article about the supposed trend, I'd say it's their responsibility to provide evidence.

[mapleoin]

> Dickensque

The word you're looking for is https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Dickensian

[SilasX]

I'm not sure it was even popular for the American well-off (upper middle-class). In Mad Men, I remember them making a point of the characters ridiculing a woman who said she liked to take walks (though she was abnormal in other ways, like being divorced).

(I know it's not top-grade historic research, but they tried to highlight what was known about the 60s, and this matches the environment that inspired Bradbury's story about it.)

[oh_sigh]

They made fun of her because they were all hyper focused on business. To do anything aimlessly, including walking, was basically burning money.

[SilasX]

It was the stay-at-home housewives criticizing her though, who did a ton of aimless stuff themselves.

[randomgyatwork]

One of my favourite pastimes is walking, I do it daily. I'm also mostly thinking while doing it.

[iopq]

I walk aimlessly from time to time, but I don't see that many people do it. There are far more people that do it in other countries, and I assume that was the case in the United States earlier.

[awesomerobot]

The aimless walk seems alive and well in most of the major cities I've been to. Get up before noon and talk a walk and the streets are filled with people strolling along with babies, walking dogs, or just hanging out with someone.

[iopq]

It's pretty much dead in the suburbs. I only see people with dogs and babies. At this point it gains an aim and ceases being aimless.

[Tenhundfeld]

I'll accept your point about walking a dog, as it's often functional, i.e., just long enough to let them pee or poop, and the walker is often glued to their phone.

But why does strolling a baby or walking with a child necessarily "gain an aim"?

I'm asking because much of my walking is with my 2yo daughter, and I'd classify it as aimless walking. We'll just stroll around our neighborhood, taking whatever path strikes our fancy, and talk about the things we see: birds, squirrels, odd shaped leaves, puddles, people doing yard work – or just walk in silence and enjoy the fresh air. I guess I have the "aim" of getting a little physical activity and getting away from the distractions of technology, but if you dig deep enough, everything has a purpose – even if it's just to do something purposeless for a while.

[iopq]

You can say you're walking your child. I want to see people just walking for relaxation.

[awesomerobot]

There's a lot to be said about the poor design of suburbs.

[Spooky23]

In Ireland, strolling through cemeteries was a common weekend pastime in the pre-war era. I remember as a kid in the 80s you'd see old people and asian people strolling around after dinner. Now my block is pretty much a ghost town at 6:30PM.