{"resolved":true,"match_type":"uuid","source_type":"original_book","book_id":"0cf5c9df-7116-426e-ae21-ce72b2ccbe50","title":"Pressed for Time The Acceleration of Life in Digital Capitalism","author":null,"edition":null,"publisher":null,"year":null,"isbn":"9780226196473","requested_by":"printed_page","book":{"source_type":"original_book","book_id":"0cf5c9df-7116-426e-ae21-ce72b2ccbe50","id":"0cf5c9df-7116-426e-ae21-ce72b2ccbe50","uuid":"0cf5c9df-7116-426e-ae21-ce72b2ccbe50","title":"Pressed for Time The Acceleration of Life in Digital Capitalism","normalized_title":"pressedfortimetheaccelerationoflifeindigitalcapitalism","author":null,"edition":null,"publisher":null,"year":null,"isbn":"9780226196473","isbns":["9780226196473","9780226196503"],"parsed":true,"ai_readable":true,"document_type":"book","page_count":228,"navigation_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/ai/book/0cf5c9df-7116-426e-ae21-ce72b2ccbe50","title_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/ai/title/Pressed%20for%20Time%20The%20Acceleration%20of%20Life%20in%20Digital%20Capitalism","fixed_page_url_template":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/ai/book/0cf5c9df-7116-426e-ae21-ce72b2ccbe50/page/{printed_page}","path_api_url_template":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/book/0cf5c9df-7116-426e-ae21-ce72b2ccbe50/page/{printed_page}","read_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/read/0cf5c9df-7116-426e-ae21-ce72b2ccbe50","page_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/books/0cf5c9df-7116-426e-ae21-ce72b2ccbe50/page","search_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/books/0cf5c9df-7116-426e-ae21-ce72b2ccbe50/search"},"page":{"printed_page":133,"pdf_page":145,"physical_index":145,"physical_index_base":0,"printed_page_status":"recognized","page_sha256":"c5a5ef54f6a0da9b781881206256193427f9f00be31d862b7a45db93e0f23c7a"},"chapter":"Pressed for Time","content":"While Japanese promotional material portrays the substitution of robotics for babysitting and housework as freeing up time to restore sociability, Turkle argues that the opposite is the case. She regards it as an irony that robots are being latched onto as the cure for a population increasingly isolated through the networked life. That is, our addictive immersion in digital connectivity means that time saved by robots will be spent plugged into the Internet and the mobile phone. Her view rests on the conviction that mobile phones, texting, and e-mail are creating a solipsistic universe; people are turning away from their family to focus attention on their screens. As I will demonstrate in the next chapter, this is a one-sided view of our relationship with technology in which we are being duped into increased dependency. Although this view has considerable currency, I argue that it fails to recognize the positive potential for cultivating a range of afective interactions between humans and machines.\n\nConclusion\n\nThis chapter has investigated why there is no simple connection between technology and time spent on housework. While domestic technologies have dramatically transformed our daily lives, they have not met the challenge of keeping home. Indeed, to take the example of the washing machine, it is notable that over the twentieth century the rate of innovation of this product has been very slow. Routine housework is still timeconsuming and is still primarily performed by women; hence, solutions have been sought by buying in goods and services. Least amenable to automation is the temporality involved in sustaining the afective bonds of family life. Although, as we have seen, even these have been the target of robotics’ designers.\n\nIt is interesting to note by way of postscript that analogous arguments have been made about earlier periods. Economists have long pondered why it is that some technologies difuse at faster rates than others. Avner Ofer, for example, is puzzled by the counterintuitive finding that household goods that use time (such as radio and television) difused much more rapidly during the postwar years than appliances that save or optimize time (cookers, refrigerators and washing machines). Kitchen and laundry appliances lightened the drudgery of housework and contributed to its reduction, yet consumers gave higher priority to buying home entertainment technologies. His explanation for this “myopic choice” is in terms of people’s preference for enhancing the immediate quality of their discretionary time over increasing its quantity. Moreover, “unlike the main housework appliances, ‘time-users’ delivered satisfactions directly to all members of the household, men and children as well as women.”37 While the gendering of artifacts does not explicitly figure in his model of consumption, the assumption here is that time-saving technologies were relatively devalued by men who had more purchasing power within households.\n\nDoing Domestic Time\n\n133","previous_page":132,"next_page":134}