As I was sauntering home in the late afternoon sunshine and admiring the vivid colours of early summer, I was thinking...
What's the time?
Which pocket did I hide my watch in when typing on my laptop on the train?
What if in 50 or 100 years time you could always see the time on demand via some implant, up there in the corner of your vision?
If so, how would it change my relationship with the passing of time?
Well, you don't need to wait for the future to arrive. Remember those annoying Casio digital watches everyone had in the 1980s? For the first week they'd turn on the hourly beep to let everyone know you've got more money that style sense. Quickly the beep tires, and you're back to figuring out whether the morning alarm is on or off given the same button operates the backlight.
Power forward 20 years and a thousand fashion cycles. How would my time sense change if I wore a watch that buzzed silently against my skin every 15 minutes? Or just gave me a tiny electrical tingle on the hour? It's a uniquely tactile device, in that we don't wear any other electronics up against our skin. (Or none we're admitting to.) Would you screen out the background "tick tock" of your life passing, just as you easily ignore a ticking analogue clock in the room, or your own breathing or heartbeat? How would it pervade your consciousness?
What if the buzzing or fuzzing varied in pace according to external stimuli? It's too noisy here, make Martin calm down by slowing the apparent passage of time. Damn, he's late for a meeting again, tick-tick-TICK!
Crazy stuff. Apologies. Normal service will be resumed shortly.
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