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Introduction

During the Second World War, factory owners responding to trends in industrial psychology devoted considerable time to identifying music that could make employees more productive. In 1937, the Industrial Health Research Board of Great Britain conducted a study in which the productivity of confectionary workers was measured against the temporal qualities of six different music genres.1 The researchers were looking for music that could alleviate the boredom of repetitive factory work and mitigate procrastination. The study showed that workers responded to a program of “familiar” and “simple” dance music that changed styles after no “less than one hour or more than two hours in each spell of work.”2 The study, and others like it, inspired employers, governments, and companies to compose music that could make their employees more productive.3

The arrival of transistor radios a few years later gave individuals the ability to change their surroundings through the power of music. It was clear that music had a positive impact on the workplace, but could people be trusted to listen to the “right” kind of music to maximize productivity? In 1965, a New York Times editorial decried the noise and distraction that modern technologies had brought to the city and saved particular vitriol for the “cretins” who “lovingly hug their shrieking transistor radios with a look of rapt idiocy.”4 Mobile devices, whether transistor radios or smartphones, can reveal individual will and threaten institutional order because they offer agency in public spaces. Despite this disruptive potential, people find ways of integrating their mobile device use into the rhythms of their workday.

The proliferation of Internet-connected mobile devices amplifies the issues raised by transistor radios. A 2013 Advertising Age report showed that people spend more time engaged with personal mobile devices than with any other media screen.5 According to the study, people most often use their devices to text, email, Internet browse, make calls, listen to music, play with apps, consult maps, and “check in” (sharing their location information).6 The centrality of these devices in our daily lives has raised concerns that the technology may be contributing to loneliness, arrested development, shortened attention spans, and declines in grammar, memory, and intimacy.7 These concerns focus on the functionality of the mobile technology and the time spent on the devices. Often missing from stories about mobile devices is the context of use, which media scholars such as Nick Couldry and Anna McCarthy argue is essential to understanding media technologies.8 A 2015 Pew Research study showed that the top-five places for using smartphones were “at home” (99%), “in transit” (82%), “at work” (69%), “waiting in line” (53%), and “at a community place” (51%).9 The hours logged on mobile devices may seem egregious, but they become much more understandable when considered as an enhancement of existing behaviors in these specific contexts.

For example, people such as Lee Ann Hiliker of Hobbs Herder Advertising in Santa Ana, California, have organized NCAA tournament office pools since the sporting event expanded to 64 teams in 1985.10 For Hiliker, the tournament provided a common topic of conversation and a chance to learn more about her coworkers and to brag about her alma mater, the University of Arizona. Office workers such as Hiliker and her colleagues predict the winner of each tournament game, and the entrant with the most correct predictions wins the pool. In 2006, CBS began offering a free streaming video broadcast of its NCAA tournament coverage, which allowed employees to watch games at their desks.11 The audience research firm Challenger, Gray, and Christmas estimated that the event cost the nation’s economy billions of dollars in lost productivity.12 Major media outlets picked up on this figure and published stories about the dangers of watching the games at work. These alarmist reports ignored the fact that employees discussed the tournament, checked scores, or set up portable televisions to watch the tournament long before streaming video was a part of office culture.13 Furthermore, the numbers used in the Challenger, Gray, and Christmas estimate are only accurate if every person that reported to be a sports fan in the country decided to watch every second of every game at work.14 Such a scenario is highly improbable. The outrage and concern over workplace viewing focuses on the disruptive potential of the mobile devices instead of the ways they relate to existing workplace culture.

A similar complaint is levied against the use of mobile devices on the commute. Critiques of mobile devices claim that this technology disconnects individuals from the community.15 Buskers have sung on public transit to earn money and transform trains into communal concert halls for decades.16 Public-transit authorities discourage these performances and encourage riders to wear headphones if they want to transform their commute through music. Considering these restrictions, smartphones actually increase options for socializing on public transit by enabling people to engage in conversations remotely and discreetly.

Music has been a part of commutes just as games and puzzles have been a part of waiting rooms prior to the proliferation of mobile devices. In 1996, Eileen McNamara of the Boston Globe wrote about the many ways people cope with the tyranny of waiting.17 Her story described the “waiting room veteran” who returned to the hospital day after day to dote at the side of a coma patient. To pass the time, the veteran invited people to work on puzzles and provided hugs and comfort to those who needed it. Not all waiting rooms come with a kindhearted veteran, but mobile devices provide tools for coping such as abundant games and easy access to people who can give us comfort.

People also turn to media technologies to help them navigate the social dynamics of their homes. For example, Linda Paulson placed a television in her bathroom to create a private sanctuary away from her daily stresses.18 Paulson’s tactics are echoed in research that demonstrates the variety of ways people use media technologies and content to navigate the politics of everyday life.19 Media technologies can provide a topic of conversation for coworkers, a shared reference can be the currency that solidifies a friendship, and the positioning of screens can invite conversation or repel unwanted interactions.20 Smartphones and tablets are merely the latest media technologies to help people navigate the politics of public space.

Long before Internet-connected mobile devices became popular, Paulson, Hiliker, commuters, and “waiting room veterans” looked to sporting events, music, games, and television to help them connect with others and assert themselves in their surroundings. The versatility of smartphones, tablets, and laptop computers makes these technologies all-purpose tools for navigating specific contexts such as the living room, the commute, the workplace, and the waiting room. Mobile devices’ association with these specific contexts is meaningful as emerging technologies are inextricably linked to their primary contexts of use. The historian Carolyn Marvin explains that the development of the telephone, for example, was shaped by its integration into the home.21 As the telephone was a technology of the domestic sphere, manufacturers had to address concerns about privacy.22 Telephone companies addressed these fears by creating private lines and fostering formal etiquette. The film historian Robert Sklar describes a similar relationship between early film theaters, immigrant communities, and the foundations of the movie industry.23 The same goes for television’s rise to popularity, which Lynn Spigel attributes to the television industry’s efforts to situate the technology as a part of postwar suburban living rooms.24 In each of these cases, media technologies develop aesthetics and conventions appropriate to specific spatial contexts.

While mobile technology gives people greater control over their surroundings, it also allows advertisers and media companies into our everyday routines. Media companies attempt to capitalize on our mobile habits and behaviors in particular contexts. The media historian William Boddy explains, “the commercial launch of any new communications technology typically combines a public rehearsal of contested and self-serving fantasies of the new product’s domestic consumption with a polemical ontology of its medium and an ideological rationale for its social function.”25 The “rehearsal” and discursive process travels through five stages: “technical invention,” “cultural innovation,” “legal regulation,” “economic distribution,” and “social mainstreaming.” Boddy’s description provides a structure for tracking the progress of mobile devices in the cultural imagination. Mobile devices are currently in the moment of “economic distribution,” in which media industries and creative entrepreneurs attempt to develop long-term business models for this nascent technology.26 According to Boddy’s theory, once a viable business model takes hold, it shapes future production and consumer habits.

In 2007, the audience for Internet video matched the corresponding daytime television audience, inspiring entertainment companies to target online viewers.27 Digital production divisions such as New Line Cinema’s “the hub,” Sony’s “The Station” and “Crackle,” and NBC’s “Dotcomedy” created content specifically for the online audience. At the same time, the New York Times observed that American cubicle dwellers were increasingly choosing to spend their break time watching online videos, playing Flash games, and engaging in social networking instead of hanging out at the watercooler.28 The market research firm Visible Measures reported spikes in website traffic during the six-hour period from noon Eastern Time to three p.m. Pacific Time, when the audience went online looking for content during lunch breaks.29 Digital content executives such as NBC’s vice president of digital content and development, Carole Angelo, confirmed that studios adjusted their content and their production schedules to match these viewing behaviors.30 Targeting a specific audience at a specific time gave industry veterans a familiar template and business model for mobile screens. The proliferation of smartphones intensified the entertainment industries’ targeting of the workday online audience. A 2015 Pew study indicates that 68% of US adults have a smartphone, including 86% of those ages 18 to 29, and 83% of 30- to 49-year-olds.31 These are the same populations that are prized by advertisers and entertainment companies. Targeting these people’s “in-between” moments became a strategy for creating platforms and services for mobile devices. These efforts have implications for the form and content associated with mobile devices as companies such as NBC create short-form programs for mobile apps such as Snapchat that feature the vertical orientation and aspect ratio of the mobile screen.32

I call these efforts to monetize mobile users’ in-between moments the procrastination economy. This book reveals the procrastination economy by putting mobile devices in historical, industrial, and spatial context. The procrastination economy predates mobile devices, but the proliferation of smartphones and tablets has dramatically expanded commercial interest. The procrastination economy is different from leisure time, for which producers can assume that consumers seek entertainment in the comfort of their home, a theater, or a specialized venue. It is different from work time, when people reach for their mobile phones to complete tasks. It is not a “distraction economy” because people actively choose to use their phones to help them navigate their surroundings. Many businesses offer products and services for leisure and work, but thanks to mobile devices, media companies are now targeting our in-between moments to help us kill time. Consumers in the procrastination economy largely accept efforts to monetize their mobile habits because in exchange, they receive tools for using culture, information, entertainment, or games to help them navigate a variety of social situations and enhance their mobile conversations.

Media companies, device manufacturers, and software developers are each engaged in commercializing the procrastination economy. In these efforts, they contribute to a common understanding of mobile media usage that privileges the behaviors and habits of the most active and monetizable members of the procrastination economy. Media companies develop distribution technologies and platforms such as the mobile apps for Netflix, YouTube Red, and HBOGo, designed to entice people to subscribe to these services in order to fill their in-between moments with streaming video. Marketers develop strategies to integrate their brands in the social interactions of those who will proselytize for their products via Snapchat “lenses,” emoji keyboards, and GIF generators. Social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter develop such interfaces as News Feed and Moments to simplify mobile navigation and make it easier to see advertisements when people communicate with friends during breaks in the day. Apple and Samsung develop hardware and software on their mobile devices, such as Background Playback, to ensure that people can use their Apple Music, Spotify, or Tidal music subscriptions while they multitask in their in-between moments. Whether through content, marketing, or functionality, media companies are monetizing the procrastination economy by focusing on the habits of mobile users that are most amenable to subscription services, micropayments, and marketing.

Industry Studies + Site-Specific Analysis + Software Studies

Researching the procrastination economy requires an understanding of how people use mobile devices in particular contexts. Lynn Spigel and Anna McCarthy have demonstrated methods for analyzing media technologies in context.33 Both scholars publish research that defines media in relation to the strategies of media corporations, the capabilities of media technologies, and people’s use of media within particular contexts. McCarthy advocates for a site-specific approach that provides scholars with stable footing for understanding how spatial dynamics influence public reception. Spigel similarly considers the politics of space as a lens for documenting the domestication of emerging technology, but she combines this analysis with discourse analysis of articles from industry trade publications and the popular press. Following these approaches, this book defines the procrastination economy by examining the rhetoric, regulations, and programming that create the institutional logic of four unique spaces: work, the commute, the waiting room, and the “connected” living room. In addition, each chapter of the book provides accounts of user activity within these spaces on the basis of ethnographic analysis of particular sites and evidence of user-generated content within these sites.

The site-specific research presented in this book pairs with analysis of the software and hardware that make the procrastination economy possible. The field of new media theory provides a research tradition to explain how certain technological affordances relate to patterns of use and the establishment of power relations between consumers and producers.34 The technological affordances of mobile media devices are determined by the fundamentals of digital technology, the infrastructure that enables communication, the software that shapes the user experience, and the hardware that people hold in their hands. New media scholars such as Alexander Galloway and Lev Manovich have argued that lines of code and the language of digital technology itself have ideological restrictions that favor certain uses over others, including database logic, customization, and personalization.35 Others, such as Yochai Benkler and Pierre Levy, see the decentralized online network of digital communication as one that favors democracy and collaboration and that challenges the economic position of traditional media companies.36 Beyond hardware, a layer of software provides a frame for accessing and distributing thoughts and ideas. Scholarship by Ian Bogost and Jose Van Dijck point to the ways in which software enables certain uses of mobile devices and describes those uses’ attending ideologies.37 At their most reductive, these new media theories tend toward technological determinism. Combining these theories with context-based analysis of economic forces leads to a nuanced depiction of the procrastination economy.

In addition, each chapter provides an analysis of the media industries that create the content and services of the procrastination economy. Drawing from the field of media industries studies, the research in these chapters examines industry trade discourse, distribution contracts, and production cultures as evidence of the ways creative workers understand the mobile audience and the mobile “day part.” Media industries studies as defined by the work of Alisa Perren, Jennifer Holt, Vicki Mayer, and John T. Caldwell argues that looking at self-reflexive discourse within the media industries provides traces of the creative process and assumptions about media consumers.38 Adopting these methodologies requires discourse analysis, analysis of technology trade shows, and an understanding of the business models and challenges facing content production, distribution, and exhibition. Accordingly, the research in this book incorporates industry trade publications as well as interviews with media industries workers that focus on the procrastination economy. A consideration of culture of the media industries provides insights into which affordances of mobile technology are nurtured and adopted and which are muted. The use of a media industries approach is particularly important as producers are experiencing a changing relationship with the audience thanks to digital technologies. As media companies arrive at an understanding about the mobile audience, they set the parameters and expectations for their engagement with the audience. Applying media industries approaches to the study of the procrastination economy reveals how media companies come to understand the mobile audience.

Through these approaches, this book argues that mobile media devices are at the forefront of the power struggle between a digitally empowered audience and the media conglomerates that seek to harness and commercialize online behavior. There is a tendency for scholars to describe the emerging online entertainment market either as an opportunity for audiences to wrest control from traditional distributors or as a moment when international conglomerates colonize mobile screens and provide users with a false sense of empowerment.39 Key to the debate is the question of who benefits from the ways the Internet facilitates the flow of culture and information across the globe. Scholars such as Yochai Benkler see the decentralized nature of digital technology and the culture of collaboration that has defined online interaction as a sign that digital technology will foster bottom-up “folk” culture, free from the institutional influences that have made other mass media so manipulative.40 Other scholars such as Manuel Castells look at digital technology in terms of economic realities and conclude that the culture of the Internet is actually fostering neoliberal principles that ultimately serve the media conglomerates.41

The public use of mobile devices is ideal for examining the political potential of a new technology. Mobile usage in public space is a moment when people use technology to navigate the private/public divide through the products and services of the procrastination economy.42 I do not accept the dichotomy that sometimes splits cultural studies from political economic analysis; rather, I embrace the spatial approach that brings together the macro-analysis of the media industries and micro-analysis of cultural objects in specific contexts. The procrastination economy reveals conflict between audiences’ desire for greater control over content and the industries’ attempts to restrict control and maintain or establish revenue streams.43 The friction points in these negotiations have material influence on the use of culture in our daily lives. Analyzing these points, such as access to content on mobile devices or the quality of a streaming video clip, exposes the media industries’ challenges as they attempt to integrate digital entertainment into their existing media operations. Analyzing the actions of the mobile media audience, entertainment studios, digital distribution divisions, television producers, and web companies provides a way of understanding the creation and consumption of online media culture. The research presented in this book shows that certain audiences and industries have more influence over our understanding of mobile media culture than others do but that the meaning of mobile media culture is ever changing as the technologies and businesses of the procrastination economy continue to evolve.

The site-specific analysis in the following chapters focuses on the in-between spaces separating private and public life. The theorist Marc Augé calls these spaces “non-places” and claims they are important sites for understanding modern identity.44 According to Augé, the modern global citizen feels most at home in these non-places because they are similarly designed no matter where one is in the world. Adriana de Souza e Silva argues that using a mobile device in these non-places makes them a “hybrid space,” at once virtual and corporeal.45 Still more abstract is Mackenzie Wark’s concept of “telesthesia,” which suggests that our sense of location is mediated through the global flows of media; thus, these non-spaces only become specific through the ways they are represented by the media content that people can access in them.46 For example, the sound studies scholar Michael Bull points to the ways people use mobile devices to bring definition to these non-spaces through their customizable playlists, which turns a “cold” non-place into a familiar “warm space.”47 Across each of these theories is an insistence that in the era of mobile media, our devices define our experience of space. Indeed, in an increasingly globalized world, mobile media devices may be the key technology that helps one navigate and bring order to these spaces.

The Procrastination Economy at Work, on the Commute, in the Waiting Room, and through the “Connected” Living Room

Each chapter of the book provides an example of how a particular in-between space is constructed by the procrastination economy, together with an example of how audiences use their mobile devices to engage with this construct. These spatial politics are central to entertainment companies considering mobile devices as a key site of commerce and marketing. The media franchises that accommodate the politics of space will be more useful to their audiences and thus more successful.

Chapter 1 argues that the procrastination economy has fostered a mobile day part that assists media companies as they program and distribute content to mobile audiences. Film and television studios, mobile carriers, and software developers use this procrastination economy to monetize the in-between moments of the workday. While mobile devices have become essential to the entertainment industries as vehicles of promotion, branding, distribution, and engagement, audiences use smartphones, tablets, laptops, and wearable technology to wield the culture and conversation of the procrastination economy as a tool for navigating public space. Drawing from media industries studies, cultural studies, and new media theory, this chapter shows that mobile devices are enhancing and amplifying certain mobile users’ behaviors and privileging them as the preferred mobile audience. The economic effort to monetize the ways a mobile audience spends their in-between moments has significant repercussions for the possibilities of the mobile Internet.

Chapter 2 examines the procrastination economy of the workplace. Composed of several case studies including a look at the Fox Sports web series Lunch with Benefits and three examples of workplace audiences, the chapter reveals how the entertainment industry targets the workplace as a way of promoting television programs and film franchises. Through interviews and observations of a production culture of the procrastination economy, it is clear that television networks intentionally program snackable content, positioning it as an entertaining alternative to the drudgery of modern work. Though media snacking is intended to carry audiences from one conglomerate-owned media platform to the more substantial (and lucrative) offerings on television and movie screens, the procrastination economy actually affords workers enough freedom to add new and interesting, if perhaps unintended, uses for this content. Watercooler gossip, office camaraderie, and mood management are a few of the ways workers use these snacks to creatively engage with one another and foster community.

Chapter 3 examines the procrastination economy of the commute as defined by “smart” car technology, outdoor advertising companies, audio-streaming platforms, and public-transit agencies. The media companies targeting the commute present in-between moments as a time for commerce and personal leisure. At the same time, networked mobile devices offer a means of communication that has previously been impossible on the commute. Contrary to concerns about individualism and increased disconnection with public space, this chapter argues that mobile devices have actually increased social opportunities in spaces in which people were previous disinclined to be social. Evidence of this communication is drawn from a study of the mobile media habits of MARTA (Metro Atlanta Rail Transit Authority) commuters. Over 200 participants shared their opinions and provided evidence of their mobile device use on their commute. The results show that the commute has become a key site for social maintenance and offers people digital tools for enhancing conversations with friends and family.

Chapter 4 considers the procrastination economy of the waiting room. The act of waiting is a moment when people are confronted with their economic and social standing. Those who are made to wait are subject to the schedule of an institution or authority. Mobile devices and the culture of the procrastination economy provide tools for navigating this feeling of powerlessness. Through interviews with Turner Private Networks, the division of Time Warner that programs content for CNN Airport and other waiting rooms, the chapter reveals how companies have approached the waiting room audience for over three decades. Previous research on airports and waiting rooms done by Anna McCarthy provides a template for this chapter and the theory that accompanies it.48 An analysis of the mobile gaming industry and its users adds to these historical accounts and the interviews with Turner. Examining the fans of “casual games,” the chapter shows that mobile technologies allow people in waiting rooms a sense of empowerment and agency. The games and their fans provide evidence of the ways waiting room audiences use culture to navigate their spatial dynamics, their relationship to a media franchise, and their own position in public space.

Chapter 5 looks at the “connected” living room as a space of multiple screens. The evolution of “second screen” apps and “smart” TVs is presented as evidence of efforts to monetize the audience’s attention as our eyes drift from the television screen. An examination of the relationship between the television industry and Twitter provides evidence of the ways the entertainment industry understands the procrastination economy in the living room. While dual-screen efforts to capture attention is concerning, research on cable television owners’ desires for mobile functionality shows that people look to their mobile devices as a way of gaining control over the social dynamics of the living room. Considering the history of studies on the living room audience, this chapter shows how mobile devices offer solutions to decades of competition and gender-based inequality regarding control of the television remote.

The conclusion draws from the evidence of the preceding chapters to argue that the procrastination economy is crucial to the development of the “Internet of Things.” The Internet of Things refers to a future in which computer technology will network together everyday objects to increase efficiency and productivity. In this formulation, media companies will be further engrained in our everyday lives, and owners of intellectual property will find new ways of managing their brands across media platforms. The evidence throughout this book offers a warning to this efficiency discourse. The procrastination economy will continue in an era of ubiquitous computing. This means that attempts to integrate networked technology in everyday routines will require an understanding of how people behave in particular contexts. Through analysis of Pokémon Go, Snapchat, and Samsung’s “smart” appliances, the conclusion applies the principles of the procrastination economy to theories about the Internet of Things. Critical to this argument is the idea expressed by Henry Jenkins that a major danger of the convergence era is the “participation gap.”49 The procrastination economy privileges mobile users who know how to use their mobile devices to their advantage. This means that those who understand how to adjust the settings, privacy controls, and push notifications can exert the most control over the technology. Those who struggle to control their devices will face an Internet of Things that automates the experience of navigating a digitally networked world. The development of the procrastination economy participation gap has serious implications for the development of the Internet and the future of the entertainment industry.

The Procrastination Economy considers mobile media culture from the theoretical perspectives of media industries studies, cultural studies, television studies, and new media studies. From these perspectives, I argue that the context of use is critical to understanding mobile media devices and their concomitant culture. By emphasizing social context and media use through various case studies, I debunk oversimplified arguments about mobile technology. This book provides a sense of continuity by showing how mobile technology complements and enhances existing audience behaviors. It also provides a critical history of the development of mobile media as a cultural object. The chapters that follow build on traditions and accepted theoretical arguments in cultural studies and media studies to explain that mobile technology is not so much a revolution as it is an amplification of people’s creative uses of culture in everyday life.