In "Casual Games, Time Management, and the Work of Affect", the author focuses on Diner Dash and it's status as a time management game in order to discuss and problematize gender in gaming and common theories of these games as immaterial labor or mere distractions. What I was struck by in the article was that while the theorists discussed in the article were discussing time again and again, no one considered how casual gaming might not only be something we waste time on or fill time with but that maybe casual gaming can also restructure our internal time clocks in some way.
I was inspired to consider this question after reading "Timescapes of the Networked Society" by Robert Hassan, an article in which Hassan details the movement from human or "natural" time and towards computer or media time which is the timescape of our networked society. In his analysis, Hassan understands our current way of interacting with and conceptualizing time as it is affected by computers and digital technologies. He claims that in the post-industrial age "time metamorphosed in human experience from the local and the diverse, to the universal scope, the unerring meter and the undifferentiated context" (Hassan, 4).
Before these apparatuses, time was understood by humans via the sun or the seasons; after this, time was standardized due to trains and further subsequent globalization. Hassan seems go on to claim that as we consult digital technology more and more, we internalize time as it is given to us by our digital technologies. He also flags the idea of "real time" as being incredibly mislead as well as nefarious since we can never live in "real time" due to the fact that our computers are operating at times which are entirely imperceptible to us. Additionally, the use of real time deems all other time fake time. That is, if one is not operating as fast as digital clocks are moving, one's pace or timescape is invalidated. As Hassan argues:
"The time of the clock (relatively quickly) became what we perceived as time and experienced as time and what governed temporal life. In other words, a mechanized device that was imbued with transcendental significance, replaced the human and natural timescapes that has evolved over thousands of years. As clock time sublimated the timescapes of culture and context, it began to reshape modes of thoughts, ways of seeing and ways of perceiving the world. "Other" times became gradually relegated to the status of things we vaguely and inexplicably intuit." (Hassan, 4)
I wonder if playing a game like Diner Dash or any time-management game has a similar influence. In playing Diner Dash, our bodies and attention spans must keep up with the pace of the game and the events therein. This could, of course, be for better or for worse. While Hassan's account seems pessimistic overall, playing games as learning or teaching tools is an old practice. It stands to reason that we could be "taught" new timescapes or paces, especially if we take arguments about the affectivity of games/new media seriously.
The problem I see arising with this possibility or theory is that it is connected to the early-mid 2000s controversy over whether or not video games were "harming the youth". As someone in class put it, if memory serves, the worry was that video games "would make people go out and do things". But I think perhaps the issue with this idea lies in the level at which games and our internalization of their messages would have to operate. I am wondering if time could be effected through games as it operates on more or less of an affective level? Whereas something like going out and doing things one did in grand theft auto operates at a higher level or something like this...
Citations
Anable, Aubrey. "Casual games, time management, and the work of affect." Ada: A Journal of Gender, New Media, and Technology 2 (2013). Harvard
Hassan, Robert. "Timescapes of the network society." (2005). Harvard.