The Incredible Shrinking Cubicle

by Liz Colville

Research shows that the average work space for a white-collar worker in this country has plummeted from 500 to 700 square feet in the 1970s (a different time, a different time) to something that is fast approaching 50 square feet.

But really, what’s important here is the size of your computer screen, right, and the speed of your processors, and the heft of your hard drive. It’s about achieving a private, fast, pretty, roomy situation inside a machine. It’s about installing and uninstalling TweetDeck every week in a fit of “I hate/love all this Twitter madness!” It’s about changing design scheme of Adium so that the color matches the color of your Firefox layout. It’s about being able to steal music quickly. It’s about blocking yourself from going on Tumblr then installing another browser so you can break free from the shackles that you yourself created. In other words if it can fit on this thing, it’s an office.