Face time is an English idiom for direct personal interaction or contact between two or more people at the same time and physical location. Face time therefore occurs in "real life" or "meatspace" and contrasts primarily with interaction or contact which occurs over distance (e.g., via telephone) and/or electronically (e.g., via email, instant messaging, e-commerce, or computer simulations).
The term was originally a colloquialism but has entered the vernacular with the increasing number of people throughout the world who commonly and extensively rely on telecommunications and the Internet for personal and business communication.
Face time (or "putting in face time") may also refer to the practice of staying later at one's place of work beyond the time that is required because: 1) other employees are staying late (particularly one's supervisor); and/or 2) because it is perceived that it would be undesirable to leave until most, if not all, of the others (including the supervisor) go home. It is implied that the person who is putting in face time would prefer to go home if it were not for the perceived necessity to stay later at work.
"Face time" was a primary theme in Douglas Coupland's novel Microserfs.
Famous quotes containing the words face and/or time:
“The ordinary man—we have to face it: it is every bit as true of the ordinary Englishman as of the ordinary American—is an Anarchist. He wants to do as he likes. He may want his neighbor to be governed, but he himself doesn’t want to be governed.”
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950)
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—Václav Havel (b. 1936)