when invasions and revelations and accidents all spread at the rate of WiFi or cell phone radiation, our sense of time blurs. You have to wonder what Simmel would have made of a smart phone. “It is not merely that the medium is the message, but the velocity of the medium,” Paul Virlio observed once in one

and our lives all began to run on timetables. They had to, or the whole project of industry would collapse. “Summer Afternoon” became a time to work. Simmel worried, for instance, over the diffusion of pocket watches. To carry one was like looking at a constantly draining bank account. This sense of huma