Where does the time go? A perceived shortage of time in the digital age – the Data Deluge Column

The purpose of this column is to explore the relationship between the increasing presence of computers and communication technologies during the twentieth and twenty-first centuries on the changed perception of the level of personal time available to individuals.

In recent years, there is considerable writing in research journals and the popular media around a cluster of time-related issues which is sometimes referred to “the time crunch”, “time poverty”, “time famine”, “overwork”, “time scarcity” and countless other similar phrases.

A predominant contemporary struggle is that we seem to lack the time. We cannot seem to do everything we should and want to do.

The issue of time poverty is likely to remain with us in both our professional and personal lives. The question “where did the time go?” has been growing in importance since the mid-twentieth century, and it appears reasonable that even if some of the other causes of time poverty such as gender and class inequality, lack of new experiences in later life and cultural tolerance of obsessive attitudes toward work were to be miraculously reversed, the growing persistence and invasiveness of technology in our lives are not likely something that will diminish.