Instantaneity collapses history into a permanent amnesiac present
Evidence
AS NO SENSE OF PLACE attests, context collapse is something we can understand spatially. But this process has a temporal cousin, which is an analogous collapse into a permanent instantaneity. Just as a series of rooms are dissolved into one big “situation,” instantaneity flattens past, present, and future into a constant, amnesiac present. The order of events, so important for understanding anything, gets drowned out by a constant alarm bell. — Jenny Odell, How to Do Nothing, 553
Categorization
Category: Definitional Content
- DEFINE: Introduces the key concept of ‘permanent instantaneity’ as the temporal analogue of spatial context collapse.
- CANDY: ‘A constant alarm bell’ flattening past, present, future — a compact, tweetable articulation of social media’s temporality.