Modern life has given us a warped sense of time. Or, not so much time, but the importance of time. It's not quite that, either, because time is truly important -it's the only thing we can't make more of. What modern life has done is given us a sense of urgency and impatience that may serve our bosses, but doesn't enrich our lives. We have email, same-day delivery, and time-saving devices to make us more productive and give us more "free time," but then we spend time trying to figure out how to optimize that free time.
There are quite a few examples of how we could look at time in a different way. If you ask an engineering firm to optimize a train ride, they will figure out the fastest way to get to the destination. If you ask the Disney company to optimize the same train route, they will make the train ride so enjoyable that you will much prefer it to driving. It will probably take longer, but which is the best use of one's time? The human brain can adjust to looking at time in a more satisfying way, but the behavior of groups makes this more difficult, as the acceleration of everything makes us too impatient to enjoy anything. Rory Sutherland addresses the question of our changing perception of time in several dimensions in an essay at Behavioral Science that you won't mind spending a few minutes reading. -via Metafilter
(Image credit: Isabelle Grosjean)
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