On January 29th, 2018, our HIST 390 class discussed the topic of technology molding, controlling, and changing our perception of time and how exactly it managed to get away with it over the years. To summarize, as technology within the U.S. slowly continued to advance and improve, many things about everyday life slowly began to change along with it, whether people realized and approved of it or not. For example, with the creation of railroads came new possibilities for the sake of luxury, comfort, and livelihood, as trains made transporting food from across the country easier, and therefore, more readily available for those on the opposite side of said country. Suddenly, if you were living in a region that couldn’t readily grow carrots and carrots just happened to be your favorite food, then you had nothing to worry about as the food is now more readily available and accessible to you than ever before due to the wonders of railroad and storage technology. And fret not, for those carrots will now forever be easily accessible and available to you, as because of the wonders of this technology, your local supermarket can continue to sell you these carrots as long as the trains continue to be functional and as long as they continue to deliver them to you. All of a sudden, the concept of days of waiting for a delivery of carrots or making the long and hard journey towards those carrots is turned into a distant fantasy. Your concept of time has been changed because the things that you used to have to devote so much time to has now and will potentially forever be made much faster. To stay on the topic of trains and railroads, it is because of their ability to transport and reach locations so quickly that time zones had to be made. Back then, vague statements such as, “We close at night,” were no longer enough. With trains having to move at a tight schedule to get the most out of their usefulness and benefits, a much more specific system for time had to be crafted in order for everything to work out, and because the trains had to adhere to such as system, everyone else, for the sake of simplicity and consistency, had to adhere to these times as well. Now, instead of, “We close at night,” it had to be, “We close at 9:00 P.M.” Technology, in a sense, had found a way to control, mold, shape, and bend time to its mercy.
As a senior college student, I can honestly say that the concept of technology controlling our lives is a bit too real for me. As a senior student in college, I already have to compile a basic school schedule for myself, which already tells me how I am supposed to spend a good chunk of my day, but add that to all of the homework and exams these classes demand their students to prepare for, and suddenly, you need to start worrying about how much time you spend devoting yourself each of these tasks, and then another, and then another, and then so on and so forth. If you laze about, which I must admit I am very prone to doing, then you are “behind”, whatever “behind” really means in the grand scheme of things. All of a sudden, you’re trying to “catch up” even if it isn’t really necessary to. It doesn’t matter if the assignment and the exam is a good amount of days away, you’ve been slipping on your schedule, and thus have to find a way to fit in everything that you’ve missed out on into the even smaller time interval that you’ve gotten yourself into. The stress, the hair pulling, the anxiety, it’s all building up, and for what? To get the assignment done by 11:59 P.M. at midnight? To study for that test that is going to start at 9:00 A.M. and if you are late for it then you bring on the risk of not being able to take it at all if someone manages to leave the room before you enter it? It is very telling that activities that are considered fun, relaxing, and leisurely are seemingly never associated with such troubles as you “need” to be done and you “have” to be done by a certain predetermined time or else some perceived consequence was going to happen. And the irony is, I get it. I really do. It would be so troublesome for both the bar owner and you if you came to their bar the moment they were about to lock up and the both of you began to argue on the technicalities of, “We close at night,” and whether the sky was a clear indicator of it being truly night or not. All I’m saying is that a life with clear timetables while also being a bit more flexible on its deadlines would probably be nice is all.