This article explores how the shift from print to electronic calendars materializes and exacerbates a distinctively quantitative, “spreadsheet” orientation to time. Drawing on interviews with engineers, I argue that calendaring systems are emblematic of a larger design rationale in Silicon Valley to mechanize human thought and action in order to make them more efficient and reliable. The belief that technology can be profitably employed to control and manage time has a long history and continues to animate contemporary sociotechnical imaginaries of what automation will deliver. In the current moment we live in the age of the algorithm and machine learning, so it is no wonder, then, that the contemporary design of digital calendars is driven by a vision of intelligent time management. As I go on to show in the second part of the article, this vision is increasingly realized in the form of intelligent digital assistants whose tracking capacities and behavioral algorithms aim to solve life’s existential problem—how best to organize the time of our lives. This article contributes to STS scholarship on the role of technological artifacts in generating new temporalities that shape people’s perception of time, how they act in the world, and how they understand themselves.
...MoreSimilar Citations
Article
Dan M. Kotliar;
(March 2021)
Who Gets to Choose? On the Socio-algorithmic Construction of Choice
(/isis/citation/CBB982958423/)
Book
Taina Bucher;
(2018)
If ... then: algorithmic power and politics
(/isis/citation/CBB014118736/)
Article
Peter Andras;
Lukas Esterle;
Michael Guckert;
The Anh Han;
Peter R. Lewis;
Kristina Milanovic;
Terry Payne;
Cedric Perret;
Jeremy Pitt;
Simon T. Powers;
Neil Urquhart;
Simon Wells;
(December 2018)
Trusting Intelligent Machines: Deepening Trust Within Socio-Technical Systems
(/isis/citation/CBB573643849/)
Article
Alexandra Luccioni;
Yoshua Bengio;
(March 2020)
On the Morality of Artificial Intelligence [Commentary]
(/isis/citation/CBB318875873/)
Article
Peter M. Asaro;
(June 2019)
AI Ethics in Predictive Policing: From Models of Threat to an Ethics of Care
(/isis/citation/CBB655687648/)
Book
Sun-ha Hong;
(2020)
Technologies of speculation : The limits of knowledge in a data-driven society
(/isis/citation/CBB966764954/)
Article
Malte Ziewitz;
(January 2016)
Governing Algorithms: Myth, Mess, and Methods
(/isis/citation/CBB061486372/)
Book
John Cheney-Lippold;
(2017)
We are data : Algorithms and the making of our digital selves
(/isis/citation/CBB593815757/)
Book
Louise Amoore;
(2020)
Cloud ethics : Algorithms and the attributes of ourselves and others
(/isis/citation/CBB491357774/)
Article
Bo Hee Min;
Christian Borch;
(April 2022)
Systemic failures and organizational risk management in algorithmic trading: Normal accidents and high reliability in financial markets
(/isis/citation/CBB890038954/)
Book
Turow, Joseph;
(2021)
The Voice Catchers: How Marketers Listen In to Exploit Your Feelings, Your Privacy, and Your Wallet
(/isis/citation/CBB102529253/)
Article
Rebecca Eynon;
Erin Young;
(January 2021)
Methodology, Legend, and Rhetoric: The Constructions of AI by Academia, Industry, and Policy Groups for Lifelong Learning
(/isis/citation/CBB867495051/)
Book
Panos Louridas;
(2020)
Algorithms
(/isis/citation/CBB226518980/)
Article
Elena Esposito;
(2021)
Digitale Prognose. Von statistischer Ungewissheit zur algorithmischen Vorhersage (Digital forecasting. From statistical uncertainty to algorithmic prediction)
(/isis/citation/CBB688141277/)
Book
Yolande Strengers;
Jenny Kennedy;
(2020)
The Smart Wife: Why Siri, Alexa, and Other Smart Home Devices Need a Feminist Reboot
(/isis/citation/CBB418129968/)
Article
James Evans;
Tyler Reigeluth;
Adrian Johns;
(2023)
The Craft and Code Binary: Before, During, and After
(/isis/citation/CBB170446293/)
Article
Alessandro Delfanti;
Bronwyn Frey;
(May 2021)
Humanly Extended Automation or the Future of Work Seen through Amazon Patents
(/isis/citation/CBB482766792/)
Article
Jathan Sadowski;
Roy Bendor;
(2019)
Selling Smartness: Corporate Narratives and the Smart City as a Sociotechnical Imaginary
(/isis/citation/CBB627390101/)
Article
Ursula Plesner;
Lise Justesen;
(January 2022)
The Double Darkness of Digitalization: Shaping Digital-ready Legislation to Reshape the Conditions for Public-sector Digitalization
(/isis/citation/CBB648275984/)
Article
John Krige;
Sabina Leonelli;
(2021)
Mobilizing the Transnational History of Knowledge Flows. COVID-19 and the Politics of Research at the Borders
(/isis/citation/CBB670644303/)
Be the first to comment!