Consumers are “time starved,” as many designers and marketers may know, but there is more to the story than simply not having enough time. The very concept of “down time” carries an important lesson about technology design.
In this post, I analyze the idea of “down time” and the activity of “cottaging” as a Canadian (and more specifically, Ontarian) cultural touchstone. Our pursuit of “down time” isn’t simply about not having enough time; it’s about a simpler way to understand the world. “Up time” is both precisely measured and immediately connected to events the world over. “Down time” is not measured and implies a smaller amount of sensory information. “Down time” is sought after because time passes less stressfully and engagement is based on what is physically in one’s presence.
Technology fails the user’s own “stress test,” in a sense, when it is designed with the implicit assumption of “up time.” Technology that passes the “stress test” allows time to pass in the background, without constantly reminding the user how much time is left precisely. Well designed technology also allows the user to tune out the loud, messy world that foists itself upon us through our cell phones, televisions, and computers.
Designers, marketers, and technology architects should embrace “down time” as the over-arching experience their products evoke.
Cottaging
Cottaging is a time-honoured tradition in Ontario. People living in the so-called “Golden Horseshoe” of the cities ringing Lake Ontario make annual treks north to a variety of locations collectively called “cottage country.”
To “cottage” is a uniquely Ontario phenomenon.
Image courtesy of paulhami on Flickr
(Being a Westerner, I haughtily refused to utter the word “cottage” for the first two years I lived here. In British Columbia, it is referred to as “a cabin” or as “camp.” I continued to use “cabin” stubbornly until eventually I gave in, as exhausted as a Briton too beaten down to ask for his “bonnet” to be opened at the “petrol station.” I too became a “cottager.”)
Cottaging frequently means “roughing it,” though “roughing it” is a matter of degrees. Some urbanites sneer at their city neighbours for having insulation in their cottages; others deride the use of televisions or Web-connected computers (the truly ascetic disdain electricity or running water).
Cottaging is time to “recharge” and relax, to cook, to read, to sit and stare at nothing. It is “down time.”
Therein lies a key insight in today’s urban world. What is “down time” and why would a city dweller require it?
“Down time”
“Down time” is time spent “off the grid,” or “away from it all.” In short, it is time spent disconnected. Hence the implicit assumption that cottaging often requires no modern technology (though exceptions are often made for iPods fully loaded with the complete works of Leonard Cohen, or covers of Gordon Lightfoot songs).
Something happens when you go to the country. As you leave the city limits, the sounds and people recede into the distance. Coming into view are trees and lakes and rivers and sky. There is a comfort in knowing less about what is going on in the world. The less you know about what is happening elsewhere in the world, the slower time passes.
“Down time” is still time, and time that can pass quickly. But it is most fundamentally local time. What happens in Delhi or Denver is irrelevant. All that matters is what happens right here and right now.
We went to the cottage about 3 hours north of Toronto several weekends ago. When we arrived, there was a hint of autumn in the air. The overcast sky gave you a biting hint of the cold weather to come.
When you see the countryside, you pay close attention to the changing patterns of time. You cannot help but notice time passing because you see it imprinted on the trees and fields in front of you. The sun reminds you constantly of its relative position in space. It is hot and close; it is far and cold; it is turning away from you.
Time in the city: artificial, precise and decoupled from location
But in the city, the natural time-keeping clues of the land are masked. The sun may well become warmer throughout the spring, but you cannot see the growing grass or the lush fields because they are covered in concrete.
In the city you pay more attention to your personal, artificial time-keeping device: your watch. Or more likely still, your cell phone. On digital clocks, time is precisely measured and calculated.
When you check the time using your cell phone, you are shown precisely how much time has passed down to the minute (or even the second). In a sense, you know far more about time than you would if you checked the sky. But in another sense, you know far less about time because you are divorced from your physical location.
You measure time, but you do not know time.
You fill up your mind with news of events from far away, from places you may never see. You know more about the world, but less about what is in front of you.
Back to the cottage
There is an immediate relief when you become ignorant to the precise measurement of time. There is no need to count the minutes; they will pass without your noticing. You need not notice minutes passing because there anything you need to know about will occur right in front of you.
This is the relief you get when time is known through local cues like the sun, the length of the grass, or the kids asking you for food. You no longer need to know exactly what some arbitrary number tells you what time it is. Instead, you know it’s “bed time” or “dinner time” because the cues around you tell you it is.
The cottage offers “down time” which is disconnected from everything other irrelevant thing going on in the world. It is time that is measured in cups of tea, in sinksful of dishes, in conversations. What time is it two time zones away? What time is it two houses away? Who cares? It is not in front of you and therefore, it is irrelevant.
When we’re up
Why is “down time” valued so much by urban Ontarians? “Up time” is time that is overwhelming. It is connected. It is a ringing cell phone. It is an Outlook alert. It is precisely one hour. It is a Web page updated before your eyes. It is your in-box. It is the calculation that you make to know it is six hours ahead in London.
Photo courtesy of Toasty Ken on Flickr
This kind of “up time” may not reach all urban dwellers equally. People who are in knowledge jobs are likely more “up” than those in front-line service or goods production. The more going on outside of your immediate physical presence, the more “up” you have to be.
The implications for design
Designers are well familiar with the successes of simpler design. Part of Apple’s success is its relentless commitment to eliminating visual and techno-social noise (consumers often say that Apple products “just work”).
But the desire for “down time” suggests that successful design is more this kind of appeal. It is also building in the ability to “cut off” or disconnect from all those distant events. It allows people to engage wholeheartedly with what is in front of them in that moment.
Some may be familiar with Csikszentmihalyi’s notion of “flow,”which occurs when a person’s ability is evenly matched to the challenge in front of them. This is actually “down time.” Cottagers may be challenged by playing a game or cooking a challenging meal, but they are not exhausted by it.
Designing good technology is understanding cultural touchstones like “down time” and embedding them into the final product.
Categories: Blog · anthropology · culture · design · home · interaction design · sociology · technology design · time · time use · user experience
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