machine zone

English

Etymology

Coined by cultural anthropologist Natasha Dow Schüll.

Noun

machine zone (usually uncountable, plural machine zones)

1. A trance-like state of immersion reached through intense interaction with gambling machines.
   • 2012, Natasha Dow Schüll, Addiction by Design, page 3:

     Echoing Mollie’s wish to stay in the machine zone, they spoke of gamblers’ desire for “time-on-device,” or TOD.

   • 2015, Sherry Turkle, Reclaiming Conversation: The Power of Talk in a Digital Age, Penguin, →ISBN:

     How does technology hold us close, so close that we turn to it instead of turning within? It keeps us in a “machine zone.”

   • 2020, Richard Seymour, The Twittering Machine, Verso Books, →ISBN, page 64:

     As one addict explains, she is not playing to win but to ‘stay in that machine zone where nothing else matters.’