If an author wants to introduce both an idea and some nuanced consequence of that idea, those points can only separated by pages in a book’s spine. Occasionally authors will write notes like “don’t read this chapter until…” but this approach seems quite limp.
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Some MOOCs begin at fixed times, with students moving together in cohorts through the syllabus. The shared timelines may deeply affect students’ experiences. But as far as I’ve seen, course designers aren’t carefully authoring how that experience unfolds over weeks and months.
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They convene a group of people, then have them do mostly-time-independent things together over some period of time.
Likewise, MOOC materials often “unlock” over time, but the material doesn’t meaningfully interact with that timeline.
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It’s like an author wrote a complete book, but the publisher decided to serialize it, mailing subscribers a chapter at a time for their convenience. Sure, there’s an experience over time—yet there’s no authorial intent. This arrangement leaves much on the table.
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By contrast, consider the Aro meditation course: aromeditation.org (👋). It’s a sequence of 18+ emails, one automatically sent each week after you sign up. But the emails aren’t written like MOOC materials: the passing weeks are carefully woven into each letter.
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They leave time for concepts to sink in before elaborating later. They spiral back, refreshing earlier ideas every few weeks. They lean on the reader’s growing trust. This series of emails feels like a much more profound evolution relative to books than MOOCs relative to courses.
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's fascinating experiment over his last 6-week walk struck a similar chord. Each day of the walk, Craig sent one photo from that day's segment to subscribers. The vibe yawns over weeks, a totally different feel from a coffee table book compiling a journey in retrospect!
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Games have really figured this out.
e.g. MOOGs like WoW choreograph players’ incentives and environments to invoke an ever-expanding horizon over many months. The design elements aren’t about raw hours: they’re more about how the feel of play sessions change, week to week.
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and I have been excited about how the mnemonic medium creates a context where readers continue interacting with an author's work after the initial reading session. It's a mass medium with a weakly authored time component.
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In an upcoming mnemonic essay, we exert more authorial control over time, adding questions which evolve over weeks of review sessions. But there's much, much more to explore there!
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Can you all think of any other good examples of a mass medium with a lengthy, strongly authored time dimension?
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Another example: Execute Program (by ) offers interactive lessons for programming tools. Each course unlocks over time, as you complete and review earlier lessons. This lets each lesson's prose stay unusually focused. executeprogram.com
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Do soap operas really not count here? They span decades in an amazingly accessible format that often rewards long time consumers investment without alienating newcomers.
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Maybe they do! One good argument in favor: the formulaic cliffhangers really only work because of the time delays between episodes.
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Oh! Not sure if it counts as mass-media enough, but schools, boot camps, training institutions—any structured environment with strong control over its participants’ time. Military boot camp seems like the strongest version of this.
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Yes! Good instances of those institutions definitely do this. To your point, I'm interested in how to learn from those practices in a more mass-media-ish form. 👍
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I really enjoyed digging into this—thank you!!
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Would you consider state propaganda to be an example of this? It is authored across many dimensions, including time. Maybe the abstraction level of what you are talking about is different though
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Great point! See also
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Replying to @utotranslucence and @andy_matuschak
Wait I worked it out—any experience optimising for indoctrination manipulates time (and also quality of attention) over days at least. Cult-like things—Landmark, other personal development workshops, some meditation retreats. If the instructors predict breakdowns—that’s a sign.
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I hate to be the guy who brings it up, but I'd argue American politics does.
It's a battle over who gets authorship over the clear time compoenent in retrospect.
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