The malevolence of cybercrime often seems all the worse for the impenetrable jargon used to describe attacks. Perhaps a “time bomb” blew up your computer, or malicious software turned your smartphone into a “zombie”? Even lower-tech crimes get strange labels: “shoulder-surfing” refers to when scammers nab your passwords by literally looking over your shoulder as you type (sometimes with binoculars). “Catfishing” is when you’re tricked into thinking you’re in an online relationship and unknowingly send cash to scammers using a fake profile (the supermodel who claims to have the hots for you may in fact be a 52-year-old man called Steve).
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While you are sleeping, some people are grinding. Or so LinkedIn would have you believe. The social-media platform is flooded with “productivity porn” exhorting you to squeeze more out of every 24 hours. Self-anointed gurus flog online courses on living a life of “maximum utility”. The pressure to optimise your working hours and hack your routine can sometimes feel relentless.
People have long tried to make the best use of their time, yet the word “productivity” emerged only in the 19th century, during the Industrial Revolution. The term provided a way to quantify the number of goods each worker, division or company produced, judged in relation to the time or other resources it took to make the goods. Bosses began to focus on extracting ever more from those manning the machines. Later people started applying this idea to other facets of their lives to get more done in less time.