Saving Time: Discovering a Life Beyond Productivity Culture

by Jenny Odell

It is this old skepticism that informs my reading of the experience economy. I don’t mean to suggest that there isn’t an art to designing and acting in experiences, nor that there is some uncomplicatedly “authentic” experience hiding behind the screen of its commercial counterpart—if only I could grab it—nor that people can’t have a genuinely good time at a place like a theme park. It’s just that, as the experience economy expands to include commodified notions of things like slowness, community, authenticity, and “nature”—all while income inequality yawns wider and the signs of climate change intensify—I feel the panic of watching possible exits blocked. I keep wanting to do something instead of consume the experience of it. But seeking new ways of being, I find only new ways of spending.