In "4000 weeks", Oliver Burkeman describes the observation that we have inadvertently begun to experience time as a "container", with activities then fitted to these containers. As a result, we lose the immersive quality that the pre-clock human lived in.

It's as if we breathe a different air from our not-so-distant ancestors. We don't notice, but there is a fundamental shift in our experience and lives.

But that immersive quality isn't lost; it's just hiding.