Time Perception
Today i watched a youtube video about 'micro adventures'. And in it the creator said:
there have been studies that say time perception in children is related to the contents of that time, rather than the time itself. [and that] as we grow older and our lives become more routine, we loose the novelty of adventure that made our childhoods feel so long
Interesting. I cant find a study that says that, but I can find similar things, and its giving me the right vibes.
I have only read the abstract of this, because I don't feel like reading an academic study today. In the paper they show people different images for several second and ask them to say how long the image was shown for.
At 4 s, emotional (pleasant and unpleasant) stimuli were judged longer than neutral pictures.
Which aligns with what the girl in the youtube video said .
And also with what was my first thought when watching it. The inconsistency of how long a lesson at school feels.
It seems almost random in the moment on who in the class felt like the lesson was really short and who felt like it took ages. I think its not random, but rather related to novelty, and emotion. The study said both pleasant andunpleasant stimuli made the subjects overestimate the time? well then, being in a bad mood and then having to do an hour of math will fell like ages? a similar thing for being in a really good mood. but being neutral, and caught up in the routine and the monotony of school makes it feel short because there is nothing notable going on?
However if i extrapolate this to work, then its not right. If i show up to work in a good mood there is a good chance most of my shift will fly by, if im tired and dont want to work im probably going to check the clock every 10 minutes and everything will feel like it takes ages. But also i do think being in a routine and not questioning it does make time fly.
And then I wonder how looking at a clock vs not looking at a clock when you are doing something makes the time feel? In my experience it has definetly been if you look at the clock then it will take forever, but if my watch batery runs out at the start of my shift and i forget there is a clock in the checkouts then i probably wont notice that its been 3 hours?