Experiencing Time in Daily Life

In “Experiencing Time in Daily Life” by Dan Zakay, Zakay explores the different ways in which people measure time. He begins by talking about ways people perceive duration and further breaking it down into retrospective timing. Retrospective timing defines the ways in which humans use memory data to summarize time. For instance, if one was asked how long it took them to complete an assignment, their perception may be longer if the assignment had many components. Something I found interesting was that when people were asked to measure time but weren’t asked to do anything, their perception was longer that the one who had a task at hand. This may be the reasoning behind the phrase “time flies when you’re having fun.” Another thing that intrigued me was that when we are in a boring lecture, time seems slower to us because we feel the information isn’t useful to us and we begin to not process the information, causing a time gap. Similarly, time also moves slower in times of pain and depression. This is commonly seen depicted in pop culture such as a scene in a movie or slow, heartbroken songs.