EDO: Reclaiming Presence

EDO addresses temporal fragmentation experienced by young adults (18-26) who came of age during COVID-19 lockdowns. This cohort faces a unique temporal crisis: pulled between nostalgia for a pre-digital past they barely experienced and futurism that treats the present as inefficiency to optimize away. EDO is a palm-sized physical device with four mechanical buttons that users press to deliberately log life activities and capture moments offering an alternative to passive smartphone tracking. The companion website archives these choices as a private, non-optimized personal timeline. Drawing on phenomenology (Bergson, Merleau-Ponty) and nostalgia studies (Boym), the project proposes 'qualified presence' over 'quantified self,' measuring time not by productivity but by conscious attention. Through haptic friction and radical privacy, EDO returns temporal agency to users, enabling them to build a counter-narrative archive of their lived experience.