Jet Lag (Object Lessons)

Object Lessons is a series of short, beautifully designed books about the hidden lives of ordinary things.

What exactly is jet lag? And, more importantly, how do we live with jet lag? Jet lag is a momentary condition resulting from the human body and its inner clock being pitched against the time-leaping effects of modern aviation. Yet, as Christopher J. Lee examines, it has much more to tell us about time, technology, and the human body. Taken further, jet lag articulates something essential about the accelerated world we live in. It presents an alternative view of globalization and its discomforting effects at the personal level. Tracing physiological, temporal, technological, and cultural meanings, Jet Lag ultimately positions its title subject as an allegory about our intrinsic human limits in the face of modern innovation, a hidden cost of our global cosmopolitanism today.

Object Lessons is published in partnership with an essay series in The Atlantic.