The Attention Clock: Why Time Emerged as A Product
and What We're Missing
In the spring of 2020, amid the tranquil aftermath of the first global lockdown, I found
myself sprawled on the wooden floor of my apartment, staring at the second hand of the
wall clock. I'd lived in that flat for three seasons, but I'd never heard the clock's small click
before. Now it pulsed with the mechanical surety of something antique and indignant.
Each tick reminded me that I didn't know what to do with quiet.
I remembered St. Augustine's famous quote, “What then is time? If no one asks me, I
know; if I wish to explain it to him who asks, I do not know.” This was, and keeps being, the
essence of our disenchantment with time: it prevails us without being fully grasped. But in
today's society, the pain has been renewed as an upside rather than a flaw. Time has been
transformed into a currency that we often need to use with care — or monetize. Leisure is
suspect. Slowness is costly. Apathy is an offence.
We eventually ceased asking what time is and started imagining what we could get from it.
I. Time as Capital
Karl Marx did not pen a thesis on the clock, but his labour idea of value lay a framework for
what many scholars now refer to as "temporal capitalism." In Capital, Marx writes that the
“value of a commodity is determined by the socially necessary labour-time required to
produce it.” That phrase — socially necessary labour time — might appear scientific, but
it's a softly disastrous thought. It implies that our work's value is determined not by its
worth, but by the amount of time it 'should' take.
Later theorists expanded Marx's views to the electronic age. In his book 24/7: Late
Capitalism and the Ends of Sleep, Jonathan Crary claims that contemporary capitalism no
further recognises the contrast between night and day. The goal is progressively to
construct a society in which time is never forbidden, and work flows comfortably across
zones, entities, and levels of consciousness. Crary refers to sleep as the last barrier of
resistance. However, we are now aware via apps and monitors that sleep is something we
ought to enhance.
The cultural repercussions of this transition are extensive. Consider the growth of time
tracking applications for employees who work from home, micro-measurements of usage
metrics on social media, and the growth of "productivity hacks" that urge us to "seize" the
day, as if time were a wild beast to be tamed. Our planners are gradually getting color-
and What We're Missing
In the spring of 2020, amid the tranquil aftermath of the first global lockdown, I found
myself sprawled on the wooden floor of my apartment, staring at the second hand of the
wall clock. I'd lived in that flat for three seasons, but I'd never heard the clock's small click
before. Now it pulsed with the mechanical surety of something antique and indignant.
Each tick reminded me that I didn't know what to do with quiet.
I remembered St. Augustine's famous quote, “What then is time? If no one asks me, I
know; if I wish to explain it to him who asks, I do not know.” This was, and keeps being, the
essence of our disenchantment with time: it prevails us without being fully grasped. But in
today's society, the pain has been renewed as an upside rather than a flaw. Time has been
transformed into a currency that we often need to use with care — or monetize. Leisure is
suspect. Slowness is costly. Apathy is an offence.
We eventually ceased asking what time is and started imagining what we could get from it.
I. Time as Capital
Karl Marx did not pen a thesis on the clock, but his labour idea of value lay a framework for
what many scholars now refer to as "temporal capitalism." In Capital, Marx writes that the
“value of a commodity is determined by the socially necessary labour-time required to
produce it.” That phrase — socially necessary labour time — might appear scientific, but
it's a softly disastrous thought. It implies that our work's value is determined not by its
worth, but by the amount of time it 'should' take.
Later theorists expanded Marx's views to the electronic age. In his book 24/7: Late
Capitalism and the Ends of Sleep, Jonathan Crary claims that contemporary capitalism no
further recognises the contrast between night and day. The goal is progressively to
construct a society in which time is never forbidden, and work flows comfortably across
zones, entities, and levels of consciousness. Crary refers to sleep as the last barrier of
resistance. However, we are now aware via apps and monitors that sleep is something we
ought to enhance.
The cultural repercussions of this transition are extensive. Consider the growth of time
tracking applications for employees who work from home, micro-measurements of usage
metrics on social media, and the growth of "productivity hacks" that urge us to "seize" the
day, as if time were a wild beast to be tamed. Our planners are gradually getting color-
