Timeflow: How Consumption Practices Shape Consumers’ Temporal Experience

Joonas Rokka
Additional contact information
Joonas Rokka: NEOMA - Neoma Business School

Post-Print from HAL

Abstract: While the importance of the temporal dimension for both positive and negative consumption experiences has been well understood, no general theory exists to explain how consumers' temporal experiences come about. We theorize temporal experiences as an effect of performing consumption practices in order to move from assessing isolated contextual variables to a more holistic understanding. The timeflow of a practice is defined as its ability to evoke an experienced temporality that cannot be reduced to either subjective "inner" time or cosmic "outer" time. On the basis of a longitudinal ethnography of temporality in two lifestyle sports—freeskiing and paintball—we find that five practice elements shape temporal experience: material set-up, bodily routines and skills, teleoaffective structures, rules, and cultural understandings. Misalignments of practice elements induce experiences of temporal drag or rush associated with experiences such as boredom and stress. We contribute to prior research on consumption experiences, waiting, and servicescapes.

Keywords: consumption; experience (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015-04
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (26)

Published in Journal of Consumer Research, 2015, Vol. 41 (n° 6), pp. 1486-1508. ⟨10.1086/680668⟩

There are no downloads for this item, see the EconPapers FAQ for hints about obtaining it.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hal:journl:hal-01152925

DOI: 10.1086/680668

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Post-Print from HAL
Bibliographic data for series maintained by CCSD ().