Olivia: You know that feeling of being constantly busy but getting nothing done? The common advice is to manage your time better. But what if the problem isn't your time management? What if time itself is broken? Jackson: Wow, that hits a little too close to home. I feel like my entire week is a blur of notifications and to-do lists that just get longer. The idea that time itself is the problem is both terrifying and, honestly, a huge relief. Olivia: It’s a relief because it suggests the issue is bigger than our personal failings. And that's the central question in Douglas Rushkoff's book, Present Shock: When Everything Happens Now. Jackson: Right, and Rushkoff is the perfect person to write this. He's a media theorist who's been studying digital culture for decades—he even coined terms like 'viral media.' This book came out in 2013, right when smartphones and social media were creating this 'always-on' world we're all drowning in now. Olivia: Exactly. He argues we’ve moved past Alvin Toffler's "future shock"—the fear of the future arriving too fast. Now, we're in "present shock," where there is no future. There's only an overwhelming, all-at-once "now." Jackson: An endless now. That sounds exhausting. Where does he even start to unpack that? Olivia: He starts with something fundamental, something we might not even notice is disappearing: the story.

Jackson: The story? What do you mean? We’re surrounded by stories—Netflix, movies, books. Olivia: Are we, though? Rushkoff argues that what’s collapsing is the traditional, linear narrative. A story with a clear beginning, a rising tension, a climax, and a resolution. Think about how much of our media today avoids that. Jackson: Huh. I guess I haven't thought about it that way. Give me an example. Olivia: He gives a brilliant one from the 90s, contrasting two films. First, you have Forrest Gump. It’s a movie that desperately tries to create a seamless, coherent narrative for the 20th century. It literally pastes its main character into historical footage to make it all feel like one, big, sensible story. Jackson: "Life is like a box of chocolates." A simple, reassuring narrative. I see that. Olivia: Precisely. But in the same era, you get Pulp Fiction. It completely shatters linear time. Characters who die are alive again in the next scene. The plot is a chaotic, stylish mess. It doesn't try to make sense of the world; it just revels in the discontinuity. Rushkoff says Pulp Fiction was a sign of things to come. Jackson: That’s a great comparison. And you see it in TV, too. He talks about The Simpsons, right? A show where nothing ever really changes. Bart is always 10. Kenny dies in South Park and is back the next episode. There are no long-term consequences. Olivia: Exactly. There are no real stakes. It’s a world of the perpetual present. The goal isn't to get to the end of the story, because there is no end. The goal is just to stay in the game. This is what Rushkoff calls "narrative collapse." Jackson: But wait, we still love a good hero's journey! People flock to see epic movies with clear endings. Is this collapse really happening, or are we just getting more variety in our storytelling? Olivia: That’s a fair point. It's not that linear stories are extinct. It’s that they're losing their cultural dominance as the default way we make sense of the world. Our daily experience is much more like an endless social media feed than a three-act novel. It’s a stream of disconnected moments, memes, and updates, all happening now, with no overarching plot. Jackson: Okay, that I feel in my bones. The endless scroll. It’s a story with no beginning and no end, just a constant, overwhelming middle. Olivia: And when those grand, guiding narratives fall away—the stories that told us who we are and where we're going—we're left with just that fragmented, chaotic "now." And living in that state has a name.

Jackson: I'm almost afraid to ask what it is, because I have a feeling I'm suffering from it. Olivia: Rushkoff calls it "digiphrenia." It’s the experience of trying to be in more than one place—and as more than one self—at the same time. It’s the tension between our live, present, biological bodies and our many digital profiles, which are always on, always active, and always demanding our attention. Jackson: Honestly, that sounds like my Monday mornings. I'm in a Zoom meeting, answering a Slack message, and getting a text from my mom all at once. I feel like I'm failing at all three. Is this just a fancy word for multitasking? Olivia: It’s deeper than that. Multitasking is about doing multiple tasks. Digiphrenia is about inhabiting multiple spaces and selves. The book gives a really chilling, extreme example: the US Air Force drone pilot. Jackson: Oh, I think I read about this. This is intense. Olivia: It is. The pilot sits in a bunker in suburban Las Vegas, but for twelve hours a day, he is flying a remote aircraft over a warzone in the Middle East. He is making life-or-death decisions, engaging in combat. Then his shift ends, he drives 15 minutes home, and he has to be a dad at his daughter's soccer game. Jackson: Wow. That’s two completely different realities, two different people, in the same day. The psychological whiplash must be immense. Olivia: Exactly. That’s digiphrenia in its most extreme form. The pilots reported huge levels of stress and anxiety, not just from the combat, but from the struggle to reconcile these two identities. For most of us, it’s less dramatic but just as real. Rushkoff tells the story of a young woman at a party in Manhattan. Jackson: Let me guess, she's on her phone the whole time? Olivia: You got it. She's not engaging with the people around her. She's texting friends at other parties, trying to figure out if she's at the "right" event, or if a better moment is happening somewhere else. When she finally moves to another party, she spends the whole time taking photos to post on social media. She's not experiencing the moment; she's documenting it for her digital self. She's there, but she's also somewhere else entirely. Jackson: That is painfully relatable. It’s the fear of missing out, but supercharged. You're so busy managing your digital presence that you forget to have a real one. You’re everywhere and nowhere at the same time. Olivia: And living in that fractured, high-stress state, with no clear story to guide you, creates a deep, often unconscious, psychological need for one thing. Jackson: What's that? Olivia: An ending. Any ending.

Jackson: An ending? Wait, so you're saying we want the world to end? That sounds completely crazy. Olivia: It does on the surface, but Rushkoff calls this phenomenon "Apocalypto." It’s a cultural obsession with end-of-the-world scenarios. And he argues it’s a coping mechanism for the chronic, unending stress of present shock. Jackson: How does that work? How is thinking about the apocalypse a relief? Olivia: Think about the most popular apocalyptic story of the last decade: zombies. Why are we so obsessed with shows like The Walking Dead? Rushkoff argues it’s not about the horror or the gore. It’s about the fantasy of a "reset." Jackson: A reset? Olivia: Yes. In a zombie apocalypse, all the complex, overwhelming problems of modern life disappear. No more email inbox to manage. No mortgage payments. No social media anxiety. No career ladder to climb. Your purpose becomes brutally, beautifully simple: survive. Find food, find shelter, protect your people. Jackson: Wow. I never thought of it that way. It simplifies all the ethical and existential noise. The goal is clear. There's a definitive "before" and "after." Olivia: Exactly. It provides a finality that our open-ended, infinite-game reality lacks. The apocalypse, in this sense, is a fantasy of closure. It’s the ultimate end to the story we can no longer find. This is why you see the rise of doomsday preppers, people building bunkers in their backyards. They're not just preparing for a disaster; they're fantasizing about a simpler, more manageable world that comes after. Jackson: That makes a strange kind of sense. I know this is one of the ideas in the book that gets a mixed reception; some readers find it a bit speculative. But when you frame it as a psychological escape from the endless 'now,' it feels incredibly insightful. Our obsession with zombies is actually a cry for help. Olivia: It's a desire for a clear objective in a world that feels like it has none. It's the ultimate reaction to narrative collapse. When you can't find the end of the story, you start wishing for the end of the world.

Jackson: Okay, so this is a pretty bleak picture. We're living in a world with no stories, fractured into a dozen digital selves, and secretly wishing for a zombie apocalypse to make it all stop. So if we're stuck in this 'present shock,' what's the way out? Does Rushkoff offer any hope? Olivia: He does, and it's not about escaping the present or going back to some pre-digital past. The key is to become more conscious of how we experience time. He brings up the ancient Greek concepts of chronos and kairos. Jackson: Chronos and kairos. Break those down for me. Olivia: Chronos is clock time. It's the ticking, quantitative, sequential time that our digital devices are obsessed with. It’s the notifications, the calendar alerts, the deadlines. Kairos, on the other hand, is qualitative time. It's the right moment, the opportune time. It’s the feeling of being in the flow, when time seems to disappear because you're so deeply engaged in what you're doing. Jackson: I know that feeling. When you're deep in a project or a great conversation and you look up and hours have passed. Olivia: That's it exactly. Rushkoff's point is that we've allowed digital chronos to completely colonize our lives, leaving no room for human kairos. The solution is to consciously defend our access to kairos. It’s about letting our digital tools manage the clock time, but not letting them dictate our rhythm. Jackson: So, we need to reclaim our flow state. Olivia: We do. And maybe the first step is just to notice. The next time you're in a conversation and you feel that phantom buzz in your pocket, that twitch to check your phone—just notice it. That feeling, right there, is digiphrenia in action. Recognizing it is the first step to choosing a different response. Jackson: That’s a powerful, simple action. And maybe we can also ask ourselves a question: what story am I in right now? And is it one I actually want to be in? Olivia: A perfect thought to end on. The goal isn't to find a grand, universal narrative, but to consciously create our own.