Digital Time: The Changing Tempo of Everyday Life

Authors: Pathak, A.

Open Access

This chapter critically explores “digital time” as a socio-technical construct that reconfigures the experience, measurement, and meaning of time in the digital age. Moving beyond the linear, mechanical temporalities of the industrial era, the document argues that digital technologies have introduced a new temporal order characterized by acceleration, fragmentation, simultaneity, and asynchronicity. This shift, driven by smartphones, instant messaging, and algorithmic systems, blurs the boundaries between work, leisure, and rest, fostering an “always-on” culture.

Drawing on theories from sociology and media studies, such as Hartmut Rosa’s social acceleration and Manuel Castells’s network time, the chapter examines how digital infrastructure reshapes routines, attention, and social relationships. It highlights the tensions and controversies surrounding digital time, including the debate on universal acceleration, the politics of time ownership in platform capitalism, and the uneven distribution of temporal experiences across different social groups, leading to new forms of inequality. The chapter also discusses the psychological impacts, such as temporal anxiety and disorientation, and the erosion of contemplative time. Ultimately, it calls for a more humane and pluralistic approach to temporality, emphasizing the need for temporal justice and new literacies to navigate a world increasingly mediated by digital conditions.

Cite this chapter:

Pathak, A. (2025). Digital Time: The Changing Tempo of Everyday Life. In Reframing Futures: Concepts and Challenges in a Rapidly Changing World (pp. 112-129). Indian Institute of Industrial and Social Research.

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