Part of the enjoyable ‘not knowing’ in movies is their varying lengths. If I don’t know a film’s duration it can end at any time. My experience of a moment isn’t precontextualised by the knowledge that there is still 40 minutes to play and therefore this is cannot be the climax. Or conversely, that the climax must surely arrive soon as there are only 4 minutes remaining.*
Thus I find myself more absorbed in the story and thinking less about the story.
Paper books are physical progress bars so you can’t not know how far through you are.** I was looking forward to the new experience of reading an e-book and experiencing it without the meta-knowledge of its length. But Kindle, you deny me this.***
*Other sometimes-irritating signifiers include famous actors (“she must be a significant character” and/or “he won’t die this early”) and censor ratings (“contains a sex scene”).
**Though I have been fooled by long afterwords.
***While we’re on the subject of unnecessary ‘information’ added by dimwitted IAs doing their best to smother the heart-opening mystery of art by teaching people to demand foreknowledge of every emotional experience they’re about to have, and to think they have understood it afterward if they’ve categorised and quantified it with the laziest of measures – I’d prefer if you could turn off the ‘track length/time remaining’ display in iTunes. I do not care if a song’s duration is easily calculated, or even critical to the software. Being reminded of it constantly is as necessary as having your pulse taken by the person you’re kissing.