Things like TimeCamp - i.e. "work trackers" - are menacing, and I don't think that they are conducive to labor, either. Monitoring work activity is completely understandable, though, especially at a small business like the one I work at. I just can't help but feel oppressed and undermined.
In fact, TimeCamp makes me feel like I'm the protagonist in "A Scanner Darkly." What does TimeCamp see? Into the head? Down into the heart? Does it see into me? Clearly or darkly? Who knows. But instead of wasting valuable time on Twitter or Tumblr, TimeCamp ensures that I squander precious-a-minute on TimeCamp. Rather than piddling away seconds scrolling through an endless social timeline or looking at GIFs, I analyze green and red bar graphs that are a summation of my day-to-day work life, use a calculator to figure out how much free time I have left for the week and think about what my "distracted time" says about me as an information consumer.
I wonder what a TimeCamp of my life would look like. For most of us, it would be a somber affair.
Distracted Time - Week of 10/17 (10 hours, 38 minutes):
-Netflix (The Hour, South Park) - 4 hours
-Video Games (Gears of War 3, Arkham City) - 2 hours
-Social Media Passivity - 2 hours
-Angst-driven Immobilization- 1 hour
-Music Consumption - 45 minutes
-Waiting for Frozen Food to Cook - 30 minutes
-Loading Screen for Video Games - 15 minutes
-Pornography - 5 minutes
-Mixing Cocktails - 3 minutes
