How does air help speed up the drying process of something like wet clothes, dishes, small spills, etc?
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You mean moving air?
The water is always losing atoms at the surface as they jump off and more often than not lands back on the surface of the object.
The air blows the atoms away, which means that the quantity of water is constantly reducing.
You may think of air as being dry, but it actually holds a lot of moisture. But, the concentration of water is obviously less in the air than it would be in a puddle (or, say a wet towel). Nature wants everything to be “equal”, so to speak. So, that is what makes the molecules of water move into the air and off the wet object that’s drying.
Wind can also aid in this process because, as someone already stated, it will help the surface of whatever is drying to dry faster. Same with heat.
Think of hanging a wet towel under the porch to dry off while it’s raining outside. Due to the concentration of water in the surrounding air being higher than normal, the towel will take longer to dry. The force isn’t as great, because the difference in the concentration of water from the wet towel to the wet atmosphere is smaller.
There is water in wet clothes and in the air. Commonly air contains less water than wet surfaces. Everything tends to move to an equilibrium. So particles of water come to air. It could be explained in more details with the help of water’s steam pressure and relative humidity.
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