How long does it take to read Non-Things?
Non-Things by Byung-Chul Han takes about 2 hours 47 minutes to read at 250 words a minute.
About 2 hours 47 minutes
An evening's read
First published 2021. 152 pages, about 41,800 words.
6 days at 30 minutes a day
Estimate based on 275 words per page.
At other speeds
| Slow, 150 words a minute | 4 hours 39 minutes |
| Average, 250 words a minute | 2 hours 47 minutes |
| Fast, 400 words a minute | 1 hour 45 minutes |
The page count is the median across 6 editions, so your copy may differ. How we calculate.
About the book
We no longer inhabit earth and dwell under the sky: these are being replaced by Google Earth and the Cloud. The terrestrial order is giving way to a digital order, the world of things is being replaced by a world of non-things – a constantly expanding ‘infosphere’ of information and communication which displaces objects and obliterates any stillness and calmness in our lives. Byung-Chul Han’s critique of the infosphere highlights the price we are paying for our growing preoccupation with information and communication. Today we search for more information without gaining any real knowledge. We communicate constantly without participating in a community. We save masses of data without keeping track of our memories. We accumulate friends and followers without encountering other people. This is how information develops a form of life that has no stability or duration. And as we become increasingly absorbed in the infosphere, we lose touch with the magic of things which provide a stable environment for dwelling and give continuity to human life. The infosphere may seem to grant us new freedoms but it creates new forms of control too, and it cuts us off from the kind of freedom that is tied to acting in the world. This new book by one of the most creative cultural theorists writing today will be of interest to a wide readership.
Subjects: Information society, Philosophy, Société informatisée, SOCIAL SCIENCE / Sociology / General
