Is time changing? The clock in the top-right corner of my computer says that it is 12:19 P.M. here in New York, and, if I inquire, the Internet assures me that this means it is 12:19 A.M. in Singapore and 5:20 P.M. in Dublin and 6:20 P.M. in Johannesburg. However, this is only one kind of time from which I may choose. I can click onto Facebook, for instance, where the time is Always: the conversation is ongoing there, in a windowless nonspace, a virtual eternity. If I post a comment on Tuesday and someone writes back a month later, the conversation still appears to be happening, without interruption, in the course of the few minutes it takes to read it. At the same time, as it were, there is no real time on Facebook; that eternal Now might as well also be Never. Things happen offscreen in the world of real time and people respond to them, but even the most impassioned responses on Facebook feel muffled, because they’re enclosed in its floating bubble of rigidly formatted comments and photos.
Stacey d'Erasmo
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