Book Review - "In Praise of Wasting Time"

In his 2018 book “In Praise of Wasting Time”, author and MIT Professor Alan Lightman explores recent trends and studies into the mental health challenges which seem to have grown considerably worse during the digital age. Even though his PhD is in theoretical physics, he has held University faculty appointments in both science and the humanities. This broad background threads its way through his writing, which is informative but also incredibly beautiful, even lyrical.

Professor Lightman begins by relating an experience he had a few years ago in a remote village in Cambodia. The women there would ride bicycles each morning to the market ten miles away, When he asked one of the women how long it took her, she replied: “I never thought about that.”

Here is what Professor Lightman wrote about that experience - it provides a glimpse into his book.

“I was startled at her disinterest in time. And envious. We in the ‘developed’ world have created a frenzied lifestyle in which not a minute is to be wasted. The precious twenty-four hours of each day are carved up, dissected, and reduced to ten-minute units of efficiency. We become agitated and angry in the waiting room of a doctor’s office if we’ve been sitting for ten minutes or more. We grow impatient if our laser printers don’t spit out at least five pages per minute. And we must be connected to the grid at all times. We take our smart phones and laptops with us on vacation. We go through our email at restaurants. Or our online bank accounts while walking in the park…”