In this article taken from Numerama’s #Rule30 newsletter, we wonder about the obsession of Internet users for optimization: a perfect appearance for a perfectly used time in one’s day. What about time to do nothing?
The other day, a friend sent me a LinkedIn post that fascinated me (it takes a lot to keep me on LinkedIn). François Laurain, entrepreneur and co-founder of a consulting company, shows the exchange of messages with his teenage daughter. The smartphone of the latter is subject to a parental control application. When she goes over time, she has to negotiate with her father to get more. The post is illustrated by a conversation where his daughter sends him the same message repeatedly: “ can i have some time please “.
This story may sound a bit ridiculous, but I think it strikes a chord with our online lives: how much time we spend there, and what we spend it on. It’s a pressure that is expressed on a lot of subjects. For example, in recent years there has been a lot of focus on the ” screen time as a measure of our supposed addiction to our smartphones and social networks (I remind you that the term digital addiction is far from unanimous among experts).
Here, the time spent in front of our screens is considered something to be limited, without any particular distinction on the activities that we carry out there. Is watching a documentary on YouTube the same as scrolling on TikTok, taking part in an absurd debate on Twitter, chatting with your friends on Snapchat, playing a video game? What hierarchy should be established between our online habits? Are they necessarily less good than our offline activities? And what does that say about our personal values, what we value and what we despise?
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Who has time to waste time on the internet?
This obsession with time is not surprising, and is not limited to the internet. In a society obsessed with productivity and work, it makes sense that this obsession would chase us online. In 2019, author Jia Tolentino (I was telling you about her collection of essays last year, released by La Croisée edition) wrote about “ the hard work of self-optimization which particularly affected women. Their desire to stage themselves on social networks in their consumption of vegetable juice, the practice of yoga and more generally a life regulated to the millimeter, and envied by others. ” The point is to show that you’re the type of person who puts a lot of effort and money into living a demanding consumer life, and that this is the best way to spend the time you have on this planet “, she wrote.
Because tech belongs to everyone
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More recently, the media Vox dedicated an article to the male counterpart of personal optimization: hustle bros, or men who claim to learn how to make a maximum of money in a minimum of time. This discourse is often accompanied by more or less extreme practices, such as intense sports training, special diets (remember the fashion for liquid food?) or even a ban on watching pornography or masturbating. In summary, ” any activity or money they don’t use to make even more money is considered wasted time.”
Does all our time spent on the web have to be useful? The question arises for everyone, even more so for creators whose job is literally to exist online (by producing content there, of course, but also by maintaining a self-image on social networks, by interacting with their audience, etc.). The border with free time, which can also take place online, is even more difficult to find. In recent weeks, several YouTubers have said they are taking a break, exhausted by their production pace and the pressure of their audience. The phenomenon also affects creators, with the additional subject of sexual harassment, which eats up their mental health a little more. And, if it is quite possible and valid to have a job on the internet, one can also wonder if the internet is not becoming a job for everyone. Who still has time to waste time on it?
The data transmitted through this form is intended for PressTiC Numerama, in its capacity as data controller. These data are processed with your consent for the purpose of sending you by e-mail news and information relating to the editorial content published on this site. You can oppose these e-mails at any time by clicking on the unsubscribe links present in each of them. For more information, you can consult our entire personal data processing policy.
You have a right of access, rectification, erasure, limitation, portability and opposition for legitimate reasons to personal data concerning you. To exercise one of these rights, please make your request via our dedicated rights exercise request form.
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