machine zone

noun

A trance-like state of immersion reached through intense interaction with gambling machines.

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Meanings

nounmachine zone (usually uncountable, plural machine zones)

plural machine zones

  1. uncountableusuallyA trance-like state of immersion reached through intense interaction with gambling machines.

    As one addict explains, she is not playing to win but to ‘stay in that machine zone where nothing else matters.’

    2020, Richard Seymour, The Twittering Machine, Verso Books, →ISBN, page 64
    2 more examples

    Echoing Mollie’s wish to stay in the machine zone, they spoke of gamblers’ desire for “time-on-device,” or TOD.

    2012, Natasha Dow Schüll, Addiction by Design, page 3

    How does technology hold us close, so close that we turn to it instead of turning within? It keeps us in a “machine zone.”

    2015, Sherry Turkle, Reclaiming Conversation: The Power of Talk in a Digital Age, Penguin, →ISBN

Origin

Coined by cultural anthropologist Natasha Dow Schüll.

Full word history & related roots →
Cite this entry
APA

machine zone. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 3, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/machine%20zone

MLA

“machine zone.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/machine%20zone. Accessed November 3, 2026.

Chicago

WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “machine zone,” accessed November 3, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/machine%20zone.

Source: machine zone on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.