Humans, machines and the acceleration of time

One of my favourite anecdotes tells a story of the astrological challenges of Guillaume Le Gentil. In 1760 he voyaged to Pondicherry in India, to observe Venus’ passage across the face of the sun. This is an incredibly rare event, taking place in pairs just eight years apart, but following that could be absent for a century or more. After Le Gentil’s first failed attempt in 1761, he committed to spending his next eight years in India preparing for Venus’ following passage. To his horror, when the time eventually came, the startling appearance of a cloud blocked Le Gentil’s view for an almost exact period of three hours, fourteen minutes and seven seconds, the duration of this particular transit (1).

With his tail between his legs, Le Gentil embarked on a treacherous journey home to France. After encountering several interruptions, including a near shipwreck in a hurricane off the African coast, Le Gentil arrived home eleven years after setting off, to find that his family had declared him dead and has sold the majority of his estate.

Beside his terrible luck, the element of this story that personally stands out is the curious nature of time. Today, Le Gentil would have benefitted from accurate weather predictions, high speed jet air travel, the not so fast Indian train service, and of course, instant communication with his family. These are all modern elements of our world today, which have transformed the conditions of our past, present and future, changing our perception of time. This article will examine historical accounts in the history of science, technology and philosophy, which have contributed to the changing nature of time.

Tick Tock Tick Tock

In the second Industrial Revolution, a new condition for the psyche was emerging in response to rapid technological and urban development. Electric rail and communication technology provoked an increase in nervousness and tension within society, producing a new consciousness of space, speed and distance (2).

For Georg Simmel, this onslaught of sensory stimulation changed the very psychological character of city living. In his seminal essay, The Metropolis and Mental Life (1903), Simmel compares the slow methodical nature of mental imagery in small towns and natural environments, with the economic, occupational and social tempo of the city:

‘The psychological basis of the metropolitan type of individuality consists in the intensification of nervous stimulation which results from the swift and uninterrupted change of outer and inner stimuli’ (3)

At the time, the invention of electric rail stimulated a new fascination with the changing landscape viewed from inside the train. Passengers could sit in a stable environment whilst simultaneously watch their surroundings flash by, a novel experience which transformed one’s temporal sense of space.

Perhaps even more overwhelming than the physical acceleration of space, was the introduction of wireless telegraphy, a mechanism which enabled one to be present in more than one space at a time. Richard Humphreys describes the effects of these developments on perception:

‘With the concurrent growth of telephone usage there was a novel awareness of the world as a dynamic interaction of simultaneous events, often thousands of miles apart, but which could be experienced in an instant’ (4)

Human spatio-temporal consciousness was transforming, and society began adapting to a new speed of living. People believed they could feel tension all around them, and statistical records from health insurance companies supported the claim that the industrial process of production was proving to be damaging to the senses (2).

Switchboard operators at Enfield telephone exchange, 1960. Science Museum Group collection

These neurological responses form a framework for a whole future of developments in the mechanisation of human experience. Fast train travel allowed hoards of commuters to participate in the city’s thumping industrial capital, just as digital visual communication such as Skype, enables business to translate across the continent at the blink of an eye. Telephone switchboard operation enabled information to be communicated quickly, catalysing rapid industrial progression in manufacturing, agriculture and medicine, just as the internet provides answers to questions with a few simple clicks of a finger.

Time is money, speed and power.

The Mechanical Eye

The relationship between time and technology has been continuously strengthened and reshaped throughout history. An important theorist who has added to this research by establishing the influence of visual technology on the perception of time, is Paul Virilio. This is particularly relevant to our current practices in the digital age, where engagement with technology is primarily visual, often accessed via a screen.

Under the term ‘dromology’, Virilio developed his own theories of perception, exploring the impact of speed on the contemporary world. He analyses how the economy, politics, technology and everyday life, are shaped via vehicles of speed. Telecommunications, roads and ports become tracks in which society flow, the speed of which have a profound effect on perception and behaviour (5).

For Virilio, the rise of the mediated image had a huge impact on the way in which one sees. Vision became an industrialised sense, the logistics of which were altered by new technologies. Optical devices mediated the perception of images, which unconfined to three dimensional space and the material environment, were now controlled by the exposure time in which the image emerged (6). Objects became only perceivable through operation, leading perception to emerge through representational images in the media. Just as telecommunication gave the impression of being present in more than one space at a time, technical images accelerated and obliterated the experience of distances and dimensions (ibid).

Johannes Hevelius observing with one of his telescopes (original source)

Thomas Hauer discusses the most poignant aspect of Virilio’s research:

‘Dromological research of ‘man’s status in the world’ shows that man - his perception, his language as well as his thinking is substantially changed by the speed of information translation’ (5)

In the 21st century, the speed of information translation is our bread and butter. Access to the internet in the UK has become a necessity, its value measured in speed. In 2018, it was reported that the average speed of UK broadband connection measures at 46.2Mbps (7). That’s 3,080 times the rate which the biological brain can handle, which according to neuroscientist Richard Cytowic only operates at around 120 bites (0.015 bytes) per second (8).

In his book The Shallows, Nicholas Carr describes how a new kind of mind is emerging in response to digital technology engagement:

‘Calm, focussed, undistracted, the linear mind is being pushed aside by a new kind of mind that wants and needs to take in and dole out information in short, disjointed, often overlapping bursts - the faster, the better’ (9)

It’s almost as if we’ve been conditioned by technology to want more. As our brains don’t function fast enough to translate this fast pace speed of information, we are evolving to absorb information in short bursts. As a result, high levels of engagement with digital devices leave users in a dual state of absorption and distraction.

Time is divided, reduced and controlled.

The Time Bomb

If society were having trouble in the industrial period adjusting to the fast pace of technological development, when did the acceleration of information become normalised and integrated within human consciousness? My mind was recently opened by an essay by Bernard Dionysius Geoghegan, who argued that the screening technologies of mid century air defence acted as a foundation for the attention economies of digital technology. As many of you will know, military defence isn’t exactly my area of expertise, but with the help of my pilot brother, maybe I can convince you otherwise.

At the centre of Geoghegan’s essay, he argues that computer screen development emerged through a process of integrating humans, computers and their environment in a single problem-solving system (10). Mid-century radar operators solved the problem of detecting incoming enemy aircrafts, feeding coordinates to their command through the means of a radar control system. The success of this process was dependent on the speed and accuracy of the human operating it, the failure of which could lead to extreme repercussions.

In the early 1940s, this process was largely informed by wartime research, shedding light upon how stress, acoustic stimulation, temporal duration and amphetamine usage, shaped the performance of radar operators (ibid). Teams of engineers, psychologists and medical doctors were assembled to redesign radar technologies to maximise human perception and attention. A large focus of these developments was the incorporation of screen technology, a mechanism which allowed for greater integration and communication between human and machine.

Violent thunderstorm activity and heavy rain to the southwest of Spring Lake preceded a frontal passage In: "AAF Manual 105-101-2 Radar Storm Detection," by Headquarters, Army Air Forces, August 1945

Geoghegan describes how the foundations of these developments have informed the attention grabbing technologies of today:

‘Features of interactive screens of mid century aerial defense - tones signalling the arrival of a message, urgent notifications interrupting the frame of the screen headsets permitting real-life networked communications, and the mingling of flying graphical and textual elements - emerged as part of the standard stock of techniques for leveraging users into a state of constant alert’

Deja vous anyone? Digital technologies of the 21st century have been programmed to remind us of their constant presence. Bleeps and vibrations alert users with numerous activities, ranging from health app push notifications reminding users their forgotten exercise goals, to news app broadcasts with their often politically insensitive or misleading headlines. Alexa is so responsive that she speaks even when unprovoked, and adverts appear on your phone mirroring content you’ve just been discussing with a friend. Our technology has us hanging on the edge of our seats, constantly grabbing our attention through innumerous interruptions.

Although there are many dystopian ideas that technology is taking over humanity and thinking for itself, we must remember that technology is part of a process of social construction and should not be treated as a singular object. As Geoghegan reflects in his essay, there is a great pressure on the gap between machines and humans, because their functions rely on human participation. Just as human safety relied on the speed of interaction between radar operators and their control system, the success of tech companies rely on the time spent on products and the number of ads seen. Digital devices are therefore designed to appeal to the senses, attuning one’s reaction rates to their presence and activity.

Time is a possession that can be borrowed, redirected and redistributed.

Back to the Future

As I write this essay, I wonder how time will evolve in the future. Boundaries between work and leisure are disappearing with the sad fact that we are always connected and therefore reachable. Internet consumption will continue to rise as our activity becomes increasingly digitised. And technology companies will become wiser in the economisation of user’s attention. Does technology achieve its goal in freeing up our time by simplifying and speeding up once lengthy processes? Or does it in fact do the opposite, putting more pressure on humans to achieve a higher number of results and outputs, with the added concern of always being available?

Bryson, B (2013) A Short History Of Nearly Everything. Black Swan; New Ed edition
Jütte, R (2005) A History of the Senses: From Antiquity to Cyberspace. Polity.
Simmel, G (1903) The Metropolis and Mental Life. Eds. Sennett, R. Classic essays on the culture of city. [1969]. Available online.
C - Humphreys, R (1999) Futurism: Movements in modern art. Cambridge University Press.
Hauer, T (2014) Speed and Slowness: Dromology and Technical Images. Arts & Social Sciences Journal. 5:82. Available online.
Virilio, P (1994) The Vision Machine. Indiana University Press.
Smith, C (2018) Average UK broadband speeds soaring, but rural areas left behind. Trusted Reviews. Available online.
Cytowic, R (2015) Your Brain on Screens. The American Interest. Available online.
Carr, N (2011) The Shallows: How the internet is changing the way we think, read and remember. Atlantic Books.
Geoghegan, B (2019) An Ecology of Operations: Vigilance, Radar, and the Birth of the Computer Screen. Representations, Vol. 147 No. 1, Summer 2019; (pp. 59-95).