The turn of the millennium is characterised by exponential growth in everything related to communication - from the internet and email to air traffic. Tyranny of the Moment deals with the most perplexing paradoxes of this new information age.

Who would have expected that apparently timesaving technology results in time being scarcer than ever? And has this seemingly limitless access to information led to confusion rather than enlightenment?

Eriksen argues that slow time - private periods where we are able to think and correspond without interruption - is now one of the most precious resources we have.