How We Feel Time Pass

I am a member of Toastmasters, and for one of my speeches, I had to research a topic. I researched on why people have had trouble gauging the passing of time during the pandemic, as well as how we as humans feel time pass. After delivering the speech, I decided this was a great topic for my first "The Drop" post, so please enjoy!

If you ask someone what day of the week it is, or what the date is, they may have trouble recalling the exact answer. You may even find that they can’t remember what month it is, and might be off by 2 or 3 months. Why is it that a lot of us distinctively remember the months of January & February of 2020, but have trouble separating what happened between March and December? Why is it that January & February seem so far in the past, but the rest of the year seemed to go by in a blink of an eye?

Today I want to discuss with you all how we as humans perceive time, and how the pandemic has distorted it. We as humans use our senses to grasp our reality. We can sense a change in smell with our nose, and sense a change in color with our eyes, but we don’t have a way to sense the passing of time directly. Therefore, we rely on our senses and our mind to judge the passing of time. But, when we are put in situations, like this pandemic, many of us have increased the amount of time we stay at home, and have reduced the amount of time we spend elsewhere. When we have less control over the lack of changes of our surroundings, our time perception can be distorted.

So lets look at our sense of sight and touch, and more specifically, color and temperature. Research shows that Red and red-based colors speeds up our perception of time, while Blue and blue-based colors slow down our perception of time [1]. This same research also shows that warmer temperatures speed up our perception of time, while cooler temperatures slowed it down [1]. This combination is often why we perceive our summers going by quicker than our winters, since there is a rise in temperature and more red-based colors (due to more sunlight). In addition to summers seeming to pass by quicker, working from home also increased the temperature and added more red-based colors to our lives. Most office buildings are often kept at cooler temperatures than most of us keep our homes at. Also, as you may remember, plenty of fellow co-workers, or even yourself, have jackets at their desks when they get cold at work, even when it was hot outside. Additionally, the type of lighting at an office is a cooler white florescent, with a blue hint, which is different than our more natural sunlight-colored bulbs most people have at home.

Now, lets explore sound and smell, and more specifically what we hear and smell of our surroundings. Research showed that up-tempo music decelerates time, and down-tempo hastens it [1]. Research also showed that stronger smells elongate time estimates [2]. From this, I can infer that those who are working at home more are losing track of time more than they used to. When comparing working from home to working in an office, there is less variation of sounds and smells than there were before, since we are not changing locations as much. For example, you are hearing less random conversations from your coworkers and not smelling the different foods they bring in for lunch. This lack of variation is adding to our sense of not being able to decipher time, allowing it to pass quicker during this pandemic.

Lastly, lets look into the role our memories play in our perception of time. An experiment was done where people were thrown off of ledges (with harnesses). In this experiment, the people were given a watch that played a series of numbers at a fast pace, to see if their brain would be able to speed up and read those numbers. While the people could not read those numbers, when asked how long they think they fell for, they perceived the fall as almost 50% longer than when observing others take the same fall [2]. This showed the more detailed or new an experience is, the longer it felt in our minds, because more memory was dedicated to it. With this pandemic, it has been very easy for people not to have new memories. Most people are not learning, traveling, or experiencing anything new during the pandemic because they have been more confined to their homes. They have not created distinct memories to help keep track of the year passing. When one month is almost identical to the one before and after, your brain has trouble separating that time.

In conclusion, I hope that you now understand that its very normal for us to feel like the pandemic is flying by and nothing much is happening, because in reality it is harder for our brains to separate the impactful life events that have happened over the pandemic. This is due to the lack of variety in color, temperature, smell, sound and experiences during this time. However, I do believe there is a way to break this, and help us get a better grasp on time while we are indoors more. I challenge you to break up this monotony, by, while still staying safe and social distanced, go out of your way to change the environment around you every day. Pick up a new hobby, call someone you haven't spoken too in a while, try to increase the randomness in your life, and you just might find yourself remembering time again.

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References:

[1] How the pandemic distorted time by Vox

[2] Why Time Moves Fast...and Slow by It's Okay To Be Smart