With each new technological innovation, from blurry paintings to moving sediment, the "annihilation of time” as explored by Marx undergoes a new period. One might wonder what similar effect the Apple Watch would have, if anyone actually bought or used it. Rather than the assured constant that we try not to think about in order to avoid an existential crisis, time is influenced and experienced on both a personal and societal level. Technology’s role in shaping our concept of time is both dangerous and powerful, an alluring combination in the face of our galaxy’s imminent heat death.

My selfies, as well as selfies in general, are ephemeral. (Older generations may scorn them as the final nail in the coffin of “the good old days”, but I am not here to debate the public image of selfies.) They are the unique symbol of a new technological period (as such things often have), for providing a controlled snapshot of our physical and emotional evolutions. Although we are causing our own demolition as a society through a “carbon-saturated atmosphere” (12) and capitalism as a whole, selfies provide an ironic tool for documenting our existence—“bits of humanity that these exquisitely crafted machines [iPhones] hold will be lost to time” (13). So, in creating an archival record of something that will disappear in the near geologic future, I, and everyone else with an Instagram account, aim to shift the priorities and consequences of time once more. Because I take really good selfies, and I wouldn’t know this if I didn't have a record of my terrible ones from 2012-14.