The High‑Arousal Society: How Modern Systems Exhaust People While Pretending It's the Individual's Fault
Year: 2026
Type: preprint
Abstract: The High‑Arousal Society argues that modern life is engineered to keep individuals in a state of continuous physiological and psychological activation. Drawing on medical and psychological research, the essay shows how chronic stress is not an individual failure but a structural condition produced by economic acceleration, platform‑driven attention fragmentation, precarity, and infrastructural inefficiency. Integrating Slow Harm, Exposure, and Systemic Erosion, it reframes high arousal as a governance mechanism that benefits existing systems while eroding human capacity over time. The essay demonstrates that exhaustion is not a personal shortcoming but a predictable outcome of contemporary infrastructures — a social issue that demands systemic recognition rather than self‑blame.
Author: Rupture, Signal
Language: English
Subfield: Sociology and Political Science
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W7118955842
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