The slow death of free time

Our time is being increasingly commodified, with the cost of living and an increasingly competitive job market squeezing our previously free time to socialise and relate to one another on our own terms, to exist in the moment and maintain our health.

To hang out is an assertion that individuals should have the freedom, funds, and capacity to dictate their own experience. It’s time we treat this assertion as a defining political issue within higher education.

James Coe

We are threatened with being reduced from human beings – who by definition are fundamentally allowed just to be into units of economic wealth generation, no longer afforded the luxury of hanging out with friends, sharing meals, and harmlessly existing as we have done since the dawn of time. According to some thinkers, our right to hang out – vital to developing and maintaining our very humanity – is under threat of extinction and this starts at university.

Read more on this burgeoning social concern over on the Wonkhe blog.