Georg Simmel’s prescient analysis of the ambivalent consequences of the increased pace of metropolitan life is a rich source for this chapter. The symbolic significance and allure of speed that characterize our present condition is shown to have a long lineage. Indeed, cultural values and consumption, as well as production, afect perceptions of time scarcity, as we shall see.
To this point, I have been treating the phenomenon of acceleration as a characteristic of society as a whole. However, as I have already indicated, not everyone has a uniform experience of time. In chapter 3, I dig deeper into the empirical data to reveal how time use difers for diverse social groups (as do relationships with technology, which I consider in later chapters). It is apparent, for example, that time poverty is far greater for single parents than it is for couples without children, and that women tend to have less temporal autonomy than men. Drawing on time-use surveys, the most reliable source we have on the allocation of time, I demonstrate how changes in work patterns, household arrangements, and parenting all afect time stress. A major factor that emerges is the dificulty of arranging shared time with family and friends in a desynchronized society. Finally, picking up a thread from the previous chapter, there is the prestige attached to a busy lifestyle that swells the refrain of relentless haste in some quarters.
I then turn directly to the role that digital technology plays in shaping our experience of time. What kinds of temporal rhythms do people create with new technologies? And what diference does it make that our everyday social situations and communications are increasingly characterized by ubiquitous, multiple modes of connectedness? The rest of the book focuses on this theme, with particular emphasis on “new media,” information, and communication technologies.
Working time is the subject of chapter 4. I examine not just the length of working hours but the pace, intensity, or what one might think of as the temporal density of work. I evaluate evidence for the intensification of work and the ongoing impact of information technology in diferent occupations and industries. The volume of e-mail and the constant connectivity aforded by mobile phones are commonly seen as key causes of stress at work. Ofice life has become identified with information overload, endless interruptions, multitasking, and raised expectations of speedy response time. I question this stereotype of the technologically tethered worker with no control over his time. Instead, the use of information and communication technology (ICT) for both work-related and personal matters is shown to have positive, as well as negative, implications for men and women workers. The contemporary ofice has by my account morphed into a ubiquitous technoscape, and this has reconfigured the very nature of working time.
Tools for Time
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