By Judy Wajcman

“Why do we turn to digital devices to alleviate time pressure and yet blame them for driving it?” This “central paradox,” as Wajcman calls it, is the subject of her book, which alternates between ethnographic inquiry and philosophical rumination on our relationship with time.

As it turns out, contemporary technology is full of such contradictions. “New modes of transport massively compress the time of travel,” she writes, but they “also lead to standing still in traffic jams in big cities.” Some tools allow us to shift, rather than save, time. The baby bottle, for example, “enables mothers to exercise more control over the timing of feeding.”

And the old saw turns out to be true: Time really is money. The rise of standardized clock time is linked to the Industrial Revolution and the development of the railways. Since the advent of the consumer society, “temporal sovereignty” — the author’s term for controlling how one’s time is spent — has become a marker “of a good life.” On the other hand, “busyness” is now considered an emblem of success.

“Pressed for Time” is a fine work of sociology that evinces deep concern for how we actually use gadgets, rather than how we talk about them. The author notes: “Fears about 24/7 electronic connectedness have to be understood in the context of the harsh economic climate and its attendant insecurity.” Here Wajcman’s central paradox reveals itself again; our smartphones may be empowering, but they may also be little more than flashing amulets, held close during troubled times.