Time: What's It To Ya?
By Sara Schultz
Time. It’s a funny thing, it seems like we either have too much or not enough. Even when we time something out perfectly we seem to think it is some strange coincidence. Why do people say the days are long, but the years are short? Do you feel that is a true comment? I sure do.
As my oldest child is about to get his driver’s license, I can’t help but think “where did the time go?” I knew this would happen, everyone told me so. I made sure to make the very most of every moment, but here I am, wondering anyway.
What is time? As it turns out time is only in our memory. “Time is an integral aspect of action, perception, and cognition. However, the neural mechanisms that encode and store intervals of time in memory for the perception of sensory stimulus patterns and production of complex sensorimotor output are not fully understood.(1)” We know this to be true. Think of the last time you were with someone in the same setting, (I will use the classroom where I teach). One of you may think the event was fast (me the teacher), and the other person thinks the event dragged on (student). Yet we know this can not be true, it was the exact same amount of time! The only differences… our perception of the time, our participation level, our arousal, and our cognition. Why we think about time differently is the question that needs to be answered.
We know that each person has their own personal memory style, and this is determined by the brain (2). Somewhere along the line we were told that memories are some fixed representation of our story. We know now that our story is a play that continues to undergo modifications. Our memories are not protected from alterations. Our perceptions and expectations along with our state of mind determine how we perceive an event and our post-event experiences change the memory once it was stored. It is interesting to think that a memory only becomes a memory once it has been retrieved (2).
It is important to note that psychologists divide time into subjective and objective perceptions (4). Objective time is the actual time as measured by a clock. Subjective time is the amount of time you felt it lasted (4). Memory is vital for the perception of time (3). Every time you encode a memory of an event there will be time related elements as part of that memory (3). The amount of memories you attempt to store of a particular event will reflect on your memory. For example, if you went on a trip and did several activities in one day, you will have a lot of memories to recall. During the recall the more memories you have to pull up the longer you will remember the day being. More recall takes more time, therefore you retrospectively think the event took longer (4). The experiences that changed very little in real time causes your estimates of time shrink rapidly.
Well then, why does it seem the day is long, but the years fly by? One particular theory has to do with the waiting game. When we are waiting we are not doing as much. Since we are not actively busy we pay more attention to how slow time can move (5). Ever think that you are sitting at a stop light FOREVER? In reality the average wait time is only 75 seconds. The unit of time also makes a difference in our perception. Does 75 seconds seem less than 1 minute and 15 seconds? Does one year seem less than 365 days? These units of measurements can make the perception of time longer or shorter. The last idea for why days are long and years are short ties back into our memory of the year. When we are living our day, that is current time and yet the year is the retrospect time. In the course of the whole year not much seems to change from day to day. But while looking back over the course of the whole year you might perceive a lot of changes. Perhaps the days being long and years being short is as simple as your memory versus your current reality.
How much does time matter to you? From the minute you are born until the day you die, time is what matters. How many times have you been asked or ask someone else- how old are you? Time we have on this planet is a critical piece of our existence. At the end of our journey we usually find ourselves asking for more time. So perhaps it is just fine that the days are long. Just as long as we have lots of years that seem to fly by.
References
1) Teki S., Gu. B, Meck W.; (17 October 2017). The Persistence of Memory: How the Brain Encodes Time in Memory. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6004118/
2) De Lange, Catherine (24 October 2018). Memory special: How can two people recall an event so differently? https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg24032011-300-memory-special-how-can-two-people-recall-an-event-so-differently/
3) Shaw, J. (2016). The Memory Illusion. London, Great Britain: Random House Books.
4) Davachi, Lila (3 April 2017) Time is memory and you control it. Ted Talk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zUqs3y9ucaU
5) Salleh, Anna (28 August 2017) Why does time fly…or not? It’s all in your mind. https://www.abc.net.au/news/science/2017-08-29/science-explains-why-time-flies-when-youre-having-fun/8831478