Tyranny of the Moment
Fast and Slow Time in the Information Age
The turn of the millennium is characterised by exponential growth in everything related to communication – from the internet and email to air traffic. Tyranny of the Moment deals with the most perplexing paradoxes of this new information age.
Who would have expected that apparently timesaving technology results in time being scarcer than ever? And has this seemingly limitless access to information led to confusion rather than enlightenment?
Eriksen argues that slow time – private periods where we are able to think and correspond without interruption – is now one of the most precious resources we have.
Who would have expected that apparently timesaving technology results in time being scarcer than ever? And has this seemingly limitless access to information led to confusion rather than enlightenment?
Eriksen argues that slow time – private periods where we are able to think and correspond without interruption – is now one of the most precious resources we have.
Thomas Hylland Eriksen is Professor of Social Anthropology at the University of Oslo and former President of the European Association of Social Anthropologists (EASA). He is the author of numerous classics of anthropology, including Small Places, Large Issues, Ethnicity and Nationalism and What is Anthropology?
'I found myself both charmed and challenged. The subject is an important one, and Thomas Hylland Eriksen handles it with style, a light touch, and many amiable provocations' - Todd Gitlin, Professor of Culture, Journalism and Sociology, New York University
Preface
Introduction: Mind the Gap!
2. Information Culture, Information Cult
3. The Time of the Book, the Clock and Money
4. Speed
5. Exponential Growth
6. Stacking
7. The Lego Brick Syndrome
8. The Pleasures of Slow Time
Sources
Index
Introduction: Mind the Gap!
2. Information Culture, Information Cult
3. The Time of the Book, the Clock and Money
4. Speed
5. Exponential Growth
6. Stacking
7. The Lego Brick Syndrome
8. The Pleasures of Slow Time
Sources
Index
Published by Pluto Press in Aug 2001
Paperback ISBN: 9780745317748
eBook ISBN: 9781783716234
eBook ISBN: 9781783716234
135mm x 215mm