When I first bought a smartphone two-ish years ago, I found myself playing Angry Birds/Candy Crush/Alphabetty Saga during waiting moments–standing in line, on the subway, while waiting for someone to meet me–the typical. Maybe reaching for a positive spin, I always thought of it as
This week’s technology metaphor: Defragmenting my day.
But if I give it more thought, it’s not a very precise metaphor. Defragging a hard drive consists of getting rid of those interstitial spaces and jagged files edges that take up more space than they should. If I were really able to defrag my day, I would be able to use all of that redeemed time in one gulp, rather than filling it with something else. I’m making use of that time–poor use, one might argue, but use regardless–by putting something in it, but I’m not combining it. I don’t have two hours of bonus time at the end of each day.
So maybe I need to revisit this. It seems that it’s more like caulking my day, or frosting the open spaces of my day, but then those aren’t technological. And I do love categories.
