Temporal Dissonance: New Media And The Amplification Of Timeless Time
Location
SU 003
Department
Communication, Media and Theatre
Abstract
In our technology dominant globalized world many feel shifting pressure and disorientation in their perception of time. While some experience a time-crunch, time compression, or a general "speeding up" of life, others experience temporality as an unending stream of experience with few events to mark time's passage and an overall disconnection with the communal sense of time. Manuel Castells, (2010) in The Information Age: The Rise of the Network Society, labels this eternal and ephemeral, instantaneous and simultaneous, discontinuous and flowing temporality as “timeless time.” My research revisits Castells' timeless time and brings it into our current deeply entrenched network society. I address how new media and technologies (e.g. social media, streaming platforms, and smart devices) contribute to the sensation of timeless time. This work presents the changing conceptions of time from the preliterate era to today and focuses on how time's mediation has influenced different societies' perceptions of time, marking the shift from our innate natural biorhythm to the relinquishing of temporality to an algorithm. I also examine the consequences of commodifying time, the role that power plays in the mediation and defining of time, and how that serves a tool of control. Furthermore, I examine new media (specifically: YouTube, Netflix, Facebook) and new technologies (smart devices) and investigate how they amplify the sense of timeless time. With over a billion Facebook users, the billions of views of Netflix and YouTube videos, and the smart devices in our homes and pockets perpetually linking us to the network, these communication technologies are in need of critique via a temporal lens. Much of the current critical studies scholarly work on temporality either concentrates on time compression in modern society or takes an intersectional approach in understanding people's different lived temporalities. Further, despite our global dependence on networked devices that increasingly mediate our perception and distort our sense of time, the current scholarship also neglects Castell’s ‘timeless time’. Consequently, my work readdresses the concept of ‘timeless time’ and situates it into our exponentially increasing networked society; this serves to illuminate how and why many today experience a disunion with temporality -- a temporal dissonance. Through this understanding we can see how our perpetual mediated distraction combined with our permanent tether to the global network supplies an endless stream of data to corporations that, in turn, use that data to further distract us, sell us products, and influence our values, beliefs, and ideologies. Because of this I suggest how we can regain control over our temporality, by acknowledging our biological and communal time, and lastly, focus on qualifying rather than quantifying time.
Temporal Dissonance: New Media And The Amplification Of Timeless Time
SU 003
In our technology dominant globalized world many feel shifting pressure and disorientation in their perception of time. While some experience a time-crunch, time compression, or a general "speeding up" of life, others experience temporality as an unending stream of experience with few events to mark time's passage and an overall disconnection with the communal sense of time. Manuel Castells, (2010) in The Information Age: The Rise of the Network Society, labels this eternal and ephemeral, instantaneous and simultaneous, discontinuous and flowing temporality as “timeless time.” My research revisits Castells' timeless time and brings it into our current deeply entrenched network society. I address how new media and technologies (e.g. social media, streaming platforms, and smart devices) contribute to the sensation of timeless time. This work presents the changing conceptions of time from the preliterate era to today and focuses on how time's mediation has influenced different societies' perceptions of time, marking the shift from our innate natural biorhythm to the relinquishing of temporality to an algorithm. I also examine the consequences of commodifying time, the role that power plays in the mediation and defining of time, and how that serves a tool of control. Furthermore, I examine new media (specifically: YouTube, Netflix, Facebook) and new technologies (smart devices) and investigate how they amplify the sense of timeless time. With over a billion Facebook users, the billions of views of Netflix and YouTube videos, and the smart devices in our homes and pockets perpetually linking us to the network, these communication technologies are in need of critique via a temporal lens. Much of the current critical studies scholarly work on temporality either concentrates on time compression in modern society or takes an intersectional approach in understanding people's different lived temporalities. Further, despite our global dependence on networked devices that increasingly mediate our perception and distort our sense of time, the current scholarship also neglects Castell’s ‘timeless time’. Consequently, my work readdresses the concept of ‘timeless time’ and situates it into our exponentially increasing networked society; this serves to illuminate how and why many today experience a disunion with temporality -- a temporal dissonance. Through this understanding we can see how our perpetual mediated distraction combined with our permanent tether to the global network supplies an endless stream of data to corporations that, in turn, use that data to further distract us, sell us products, and influence our values, beliefs, and ideologies. Because of this I suggest how we can regain control over our temporality, by acknowledging our biological and communal time, and lastly, focus on qualifying rather than quantifying time.
Comments
Nancy McVittie is the faculty sponsor of this project.