Running to miss nothing: Anxious temporality and the frustration of the (un)limited

Abstract

This article analyzes some phenomena that are part of the processes of “digitalization of life” and are symptomatic of changes in the ways of experiencing temporality. Among them, the habit of binge-watching audiovisual products on streaming platforms; the use of programs that speed up the consumption of videos and audios; and the offer of “slow content” to recalibrate one’s wellbeing in an efficient and productive way. In all these practices, a certain anxiety is detected in the ways of dealing with time, resulting from the conflict between the stimulus to consume unlimitedly and the frustration due to the persistence of limitations, especially in time. This is an essayistic analysis based on the genealogical perspective, which analyzes a set of media articles dedicated to the subject matter in focus, seeking to identify – in these traces – changes in the regimes of knowledge and power in the transition from modern to contemporary era.