While I was reading the chapter on time, I had one of those "aha moments" that connects an experience with an explanation. It made complete sense to me that time, while measured in seconds, minutes, hours, days, and so on, it is also determined by the activities we accomplish. I feel like we could all agree that an hour in traffic feels much longer than an hour watching television. Likewise, the week of final exams goes by much slower than a week of vacation. Therefore, it makes sense that our perception of time is affected by our actions and how we use our time. I found the explanation so obvious that it was interesting and I couldn't help but wonder what activities speed up time and which stretch time.
Activities that speed up time:
-Watching a good movie
-Reading a good book
-Browsing on Facebook
-Spending time with friends
-Social events
-Taking a nap
-Holidays
-Vacations
Activities that slow time:
-Watching a terrible movie
-Reading an uninteresting book
-Replying to countless e-mails
-Sitting in a waiting room
-Waiting for a delayed flight
-Sitting on an international flight
-Final exams
-Dentist or doctors appointments
-Sitting in traffic
Hi Brit, I loved your two lists. This would be a good class exercise. Time is certainly an interesting concept to consider, especially if we consider that it is socially mediated, that our actions and perceptions influence our use of time. Good post. dw
ReplyDeleteI think this is a really interesting post that brings up something that I'm sure we've all noticed about the passing of time: it doesn't always feel the same. However, I don't believe our perception of its passing is due so much to what we are doing, but rather our emotions at that time.
ReplyDeleteMany of the items that you cite on your first list are things that most people would describe as "fun" or "interesting, whereas the activities on your second list would generally be considered "boring." The only problem with this is that our enjoyment of the activities on the first list or our distaste for the ones on the second is not absolute.
For example, we can override the boredom of sitting and waiting by reading a good book or listening to music, just like the enjoyment of spending time with friends can be overridden by things like boredom due to repetition or even our state of alertness at the time.
In short, I think it's more about how we view these things (whether we choose to be optimists or pessimists), which really determines how we perceive the passing of time.
I too think that this is an interesting post. The way we view time is based on the actions that we do in our everyday lives. Although watching a movie for two hours may seem to fly by, a two hour class seems to take forever. Our time is perceived by our emotions,and how we are feeling at that moment.
ReplyDeleteFor example the list you made to speed up time is equivalent to actions we enjoy, while the things we do that slow down our time are equivalent to the negative emotion while conducting that activity.
Everybody has shaped their emotion to an activity. What we associate with the action we are acting on tends to shape or form our opinion on what we are doing.
You are right final exams do slow down time, good thing the next week starts a long vacation!