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As we all know, time flies when you’re having fun. But according to a study in the journal Psychological Science, the reverse is just as true: we enjoy ourselves more when we think time passes quickly.
Time is a tough thing to keep track of. Sometimes it zooms, other times it drags. And psychologists got to wondering, as psychologists often do: how does that make you feel?
So they asked people to take a 10-minute test. And then they pulled a fast one: For half the volunteers, they called “time’s up” when only five minutes had passed. The other half had to labor for 20 minutes before their 10-minute test was done. The result? Compared with the folks for whom time stood still, the finished-in-five team said they had more fun.
—Karen Hopkin
[The above text is an exact transcript of the audio in the podcast.]
5 Comments
Add CommentI found the study interesting. It seems we have fun when things go faster than expectations.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI have always wondered about the physiology of "fun" as opposed to, say, pleasure or happiness. If I mentally go through a list of pursuits that produce fun they seem to contain a lot of elements that should not bring pleasure, e.g. hard work, pushing your body to the limits, danger, violence etc.
I wonder why hockey, soccer, football and mountain climbing are 'fun'?
but... why?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBut.. Why?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisFun is learning in a controlled environment. It takes all sorts of things that wouldn't be fun in another sense. But it takes on a different meaning in an act of personal experimentation.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIn another study, they told everyone that they would be punched in the face for 10 minutes. One group was actually only punched for 5 minutes, while the other was punched for a full 20 minutes. Due to some psychological quirk the authors don't quite understand, the group that was only punched for 5 minutes had more fun.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIn my view, the study would have been more interesting if both groups were punched the same amount, but had been told that they had been punched for different amounts of time. That way you avoid conflating the desirability of time passing quickly with the desirability of being punched less.