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Media 6: Reading Discussion – Week Five

“Finding Time in a Digital Age” by Judy Wajcman

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In chapter 7 of Pressed for Time: The Acceleration of Life in Digital capitalism, Judy Wajcman discusses the idea of an “acceleration society, in which technological acceleration produces not more leisure and downtime, but in fact an ever-faster pace of life. [She is preominantly] interested in how we can make more of time” (Wajcman, 2015, p164).

Thinking from a critical point of view, Wajcman’s writing inspired relationships between not only other university work but also everyday life.

Wajcman states that “it is often lamented that we have lost control over the machines to which we gave birth”(164). I disagree. For I believe it is not the machines we have lost control of, but rather ourselves. These devices will only work if we ask them to – if we pick them up and use them.

However, I am not blind to the concept that sometimes it is impossible to put them down. Someone in the media industry today is required to always be switched on. There is hardly any down time, and to perform your job to the best of the ability you need to always be on.
For example, a journalist needs to be ‘on‘ if a story breaks overnight. So here, while technology aids the media work, it has made it more time consuming.
But we as a society want news all the time, as it happens.It isn’t technology that is asking for it, it’s humans. So who’s really to blame?

Interestingly, this reading ties in with our research report regarding the digital divide, and as to whether technology empowers or disempowers us.
While technology empowers skills, for say a journalist, it also disempowers us, as we have become consumed by it, possibly losing the real meaning of our lives (that could be a stretch, but for some it may be true.)
Disempowerment isn’t just losing money or social standings. I believe it is losing who you are as a person.

However, through this reading, I couldn’t shake one particular thought: Instead of blaming and pointing the finger at technology, perhaps we should instead stand back and look at ourselves.

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References

Judy Wajcman, 2015, ‘Finding Time in a Digital Age’ in Pressed for Time: The Acceleration of Life in Digital Capitalism, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, ch.7.

rebeccaskilton • August 18, 2016


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