Screen activity races time at both ends yet erases memory

Evidence

According to this research, contemporary forms of activity like television and computer games produce a novel “short-short” pattern of time perception that stands the subjective time paradox on its head (i.e., displays both rapidly elapsing experiential time and rapidly erased memory traces). The lived events remain episodic. They are no longer linked to each other, to history, and to one’s own individual identity. On account of this, time begins in a certain way to race “at both ends”: during activities, which are felt to be short (and often stressful), it elapses very rapidly, but, at the same, in retrospect it seems to “contract” or shrink because they hardly leave any memory traces behind (as Benjamin argued, we remember with the help of photos and souvenirs). Thus, on the one hand, the days and years seem to “fly” by, while, on the other hand, looking back, we have the feeling that time literally slipped through our fingers. To sum up, the society characterized by the short-short pattern could prove to be one that is just as rich in lived events as it is poor in experience. — Hartmut Rosa, Social Acceleration, 813

Categorization

• recurring: this claim recurs 3 times within its source
• XREF: connects to: Even daylight cycles can be accelerated, but at the price of disposability; Moral wear-out now replaces physical wear in driving object replacement — Hartmut Rosa, Social Acceleration: A New Theory of…, 322; Contextless screen experiences erase memory traces, unlike identity-linked ones. — Hartmut Rosa, Social Acceleration: A New Theory of…, 403