How do we experience time? - Matt Danzico

Why is that some experiences feel like they last forever, while others fly by? We tend to miscalculate the time it takes to engage in novel activities due to the influence of memories. Matt Danzico explains why your childhood feels like it lasted forever and why that beach vacation seemed like two months rather than two weeks.

Lesson by Matt Danzico, animation by London Squared Productions.

[MoosTheMonk]

I thought I did 20 seconds... and this video is 3 hours long!
I'll watch it again yesterday.

[ShawnRavenfire]

I think another reason why time appears to slow down during a car accident or falling from a great height is that your brain is being hit with adrenalin, making you process information at a faster rate, in the hope that you can use this information to survive an apparently dangerous situation.

However, I find that often, newer experiences tend to feel shorter, because repeating the same experience is boring, and boring events feel longer compared with how quickly we wish they'd be over.

[KookaburraPunk]

Does it bother anyone else that he said he wanted you to twirl around, but then he had you hop on one foot?

[beatrix]

So that's why music always seams shorter the second time you listen to it.

[joehey]

Considering how old this video is, how education is a blessing, and realizing how science has never been implemented into the culture, how important it is, specifically how important time Perception is, and how no one even cares to know about science, still baffles me. I love this stuff, I breathe this, I live this

[nope.]

So basically even if you live till you're 80 it doesn't mean anything unless you made those years count by doing new experiments. The only way to truly live and feel like you lived those years is by making memories... those memories can make you feel you lived longer...
I like this :)

[PedanticNo]

I was in a car accident, I'll describe it:

My left foot pushed down on its pedal, followed shortly thereafter by the right. I turned left onto 3rd street and regained consciousness in a hospital. Didn't even get to experience perceived time dilation, damn memory =[

[SinaShahandeh]

I did all the jumping and barking and I thought it was only 15 seconds. In contrast to this argument, unfamiliar experiences are percieved faster since you do not get bored and time flyes. Whereas if you are waiting for a doctor appointment in the office, every second feels like one hour!

[iau]

In my first live presentation as a drummer, i felt i played perfectly fine. when i looked back at a video recording i was rushing hard through the whole thing. made me feel pretty bad, damn time dilation

[nope.]

The video started while I was on another tab, I thought something had happened to my computer. God, when the voice said "hello, human..." it made my heart sink...

[smocal]

OH MY GOSH I was going to say thirty, but then I settled on 26. I got really excited

[lemonsys]

What if our individual experience of time is actually correct, in spite of it being different from everyone else's. We set the time standard as a clock and then assume human experience of time is in error, but what if it's not? If time is relative, dependent on the speed you are traveling, (according to einstein's relativity) who's to say it's not dependant on other things too? What if we actually live at varying speeds, not just in illusion but in reality?

Science depends on experience, but here we run into a conflict of two experiences, the experience of changes in the clock, and our own experience of time. The current scientific view systematically invalidates the individual experience, and trusts the clock. But I think it's quite possible to build a theory which embraces both the individual experience of time, and measurements of the clock. Empiricism, or knowledge from experience has been corrupted, and now we use our beliefs about our past experience in order to invalidate other parts of our experience.

Our beliefs about our experience (like our assumption that we perceive time incorrectly) has become more "true" than our true experience itself, which is that we perceive time differently at different times, and differently from each other. And the clock in this case can be very valuable if we use it to contrast our different experiences of time, rather than to invalidate them.

[JungleJargon]

Metabolism, the older you get, seems to shorten time (maybe because you do less by comparison). It seems time accelerates when you see your peers or even younger people getting old. Sometimes people get old very fast.
There is, however, an apparent contradiction to that. Time also flies when you are having fun. Even though a lot is happening, time seems to go by fast.
I estimated 15 seconds because I know people overestimate and I also didn't hop on one leg and bark like a dog.

[lzzzo]

Its seems that when we look back, the time passed just flew by, but when we look forward it seems like an eternity

[icdias]

I GUESSED 27 SECONDS AND KINDA SCREAMED WHEN HE SAID THE TIME AM I A SUPERHERO YET

[luciusatkinson]

My intuition told me it was 27 seconds, but then I thought analytically and chose 23 seconds. 
Utilize your intuition, guys.

[devotedamvs]

I cant believe that I actually did this at 4am in the morning and also underestimating the time and not overestimating... 💀

[dirtyskills]

i just love ted ed very educative i learn something interesting every day.
thank you guys.

[berni]

I don't think so, the mind works different when we're talking about dreams. Even, the time that you spend on a dream is bigger than the time that you actually dreamed.

[duhboss]

I guessed 25 seconds. Michael also touches on this topic in one of the VSause videos. I can't remember exactly which though.