I'm always surprised how lightly people talk about today's "faster pace of change" or similar expressions, without ever specifying how this is measured..

How about 'text messaging lingo' as a measure of the 'speed of change' [i.e. text truncation in inverse proportion to the speed of communication]:

"Cell phones, the World Wide Web, IM, email and SMS text messaging has created a language of it's own, much to the distaste of many teachers, parents and employers! But regardless of how we may feel about the new lingo, it's here to stay, so we may as well all understand what it means and how to use the abbreviations and emoticons - and I guess it does save time, especially for those who don't touch type or have to struggle with tiny cell phone keypad buttons ;0)."