Bits of Time : Thinking Temporally in a Digital World

Bits of Time explores how the digital age reshapes our understanding of time. Tracing the long and complex history of temporal thought, the book situates today’s digital timekeeping within centuries of evolving social, cultural, and scientific practices – from Galileo’s separation of time from its social context to the regimented use of schedules to the repetitive rhythms of the digital timekeeper. In the digital world, time becomes fragmented, recorded, and endlessly reordered. Each timestamp, archive, or captured webpage reflects an obsessive impulse to measure and preserve the fleeting present. Drawing on examples from Einstein’s relativity and Walter Benjamin’s reflections on mechanical reproduction to the longue durée of the Annales School, Bits of Time shows how digital temporality transforms foundational humanist concepts. Challenging the dominance of spatial frameworks in digital humanities, historian Nigel Raab restores time to the center of critical inquiry. The book reveals how digital technology's discrete, flexible, and repetitive treatment of time reshapes not only how we record the world but how we think within it.