In view of such phenomena and drawing on Sigmund Freud, Norbert Elias, and Walter Benjamin in a train of thought reminiscent of Simmel's reflections on the metropolis, Schivelbusch conjectures that the civilizing acceleration of social life exposes modern to an ever denser sequence of new and agressive stimuli that have disturbing and irritating effects so long as the psyche of the affected does not respond with a (consciousness and perception altering) reinforcement of the stimulus defence mechanism.