Defne YucesoyWe like to talk about time like it is something we personally own. We try to save time, manage time or use time wisely. Our phones even summarize these for us by counting hours spent, apps opened, notifications sent or received as if awareness alone means control. Features on our phones such as “screen time” promise to give us clarity but in reality they give us something much smaller. They give us a mirror and not a map. Why? Knowing where your time goes doesn’t mean you know who it goes to.
Every hour you spend in your life is doing much more than just passing. Those hours all produce something. For example, two hours of scrolling on the app TikTok doesn’t just make those two hours disappear. Those two hours generate engagement, data, ad revenue etc. They create an algorithm that becomes much better at having you there again tomorrow. Your time is not unproductive, it is economically active. Yet, we still frame it in our minds that way as a society. We often think “I wasted a lot of time.” but the system sees it as created value. The catch is this value that was created was not for you.
In the present day it is implemented to us that productivity is a personal responsibility. If you are a person that gets distracted easily, you need more discipline and if you are overwhelmed you need better habits. I think this explanation is incomplete.
This explanation erases the fact that entire systems are designed to compete for your attention and win. Your feed is not fair minded. Your feed is engineered. It learns from you , adapts to you and predicts you and what you want to see. Perhaps over time it doesn’t just reflect and satisfy your interests, it shapes them.What you watch becomes what you want, and what you want becomes what you watch over and over again. Control, in this context, is not simply about willpower.
It’s about structure.
What if we asked ourselves different questions? What if instead of asking “How much time did I spend?” we asked ourselves “Who benefited from it?”. Now, I want you to imagine an app or platform that doesn’t just track hours but also creates a map of value.
So this platform would tell you “3 hours contributed to platform growth, ad targeting, and data extraction” or “You received short term entertainment, with limited long-term return” instead of “You spent 3 hours on your phone.”. This platform would categorize your time like:
- Time that builds you
- Time that maintains you
- Time that takes away from you
With the help of this app the world wouldn’t feel like it is slipping beneath you. It would be a redefinition of time management.
Maybe the end goal is not to be productive but it is to be more alert. Alert of where our time goes and who it is going to. Most importantly being aware of who our time benefits. In the end time doesn’t “just pass”. Time builds, acquires and shapes. The real question that we should ask now is is it building you or something else?
