Why time feels so weird in 2020(graphics.reuters.com) |
Why time feels so weird in 2020(graphics.reuters.com) |
From the first question forward, if one wanted to guess what the technically correct answer was, it was pretty straightforward.
The point wasn't to 'test' it was to get people to see how small artefacts can consistently shift our view of time.
There's no 'win' in answering the questions correctly.
Obvious example: the cassette question.
Question: When were storage devices for audio commonly known as cassette tapes introduced?
Expected answer: 1963.
If "introduced" is intended to be read as shorthand for "sold in a retail market", then this question has no single answer grounded in one person's life experience. I was recalling the year of invention when I answered[1].
Citing "the early 1960s" will be good enough for anyone having a conversation about tech history. The year of the first retail release certainly isn't interesting or worth keeping in your head. Worse, the 1960s weren't even the decade most strongly associated with cassette tapes.
So this is very much a neener-neener type of gotcha question.
Edit: what was different about how you perceived time?
Also, I’m about to hit 30 this year so there’s that.
And also also, when I got to the question about Jurassic Park, my immediate thought was 1993. But then I became unsure whether that was for the first or the second movie so I guessed that the first one actually came out in 1984 or something. Shouldn’t have second guessed myself on that one, d’oh!
But that kind of underlines the point about age, and what they were saying also. If I were older I probably would’ve seen it in the cinema when it first came out and I’d be like “oh yeah, I remember when I went and saw that movie that was the same year that I did such and such so it must have been then”.
you just havent had an emotionally charged event if you haven't experienced that in some time.
its likely just harder to get a rise outta you nowadays then before... but with the right mindset/training, you can even force it to happen.
But at least in my case, it's more of a subjective feeling, not any confusion about when the actual date in question occurred. I know the London Olympics occurred in 2012, it just feels like 2012 was only a few years ago rather than that the Olympics occurred in some other year.
Still, I'm not sure how you'd really test that in this format.
Cheap Fast and Good does not exists - as can be seen here once again - your cheap and fast approach lost me even though the content might be good. Try some acceptance tests next time before rushing publications.
Ask important questions rather than random trivia too. People really remember when they watched a movie, rather than when it was released. When they used a Walkman/CD player/MP3 player/game console, not when they were first made.
Biographic memory not random historical facts.
I equate this to each year being a smaller period of your overall time. When you turned 5 a year was 20% of your life, at 50 it is 2%. Perceptually that is huge.
for me personally its mostly about routine i think. time just looses its meaning while doing the daily grind.
but honestly, the article spoke about it better then i ever could :)
When you're a kid, you change schools, pass exams which serve as time markers, have various important lifetime events. As a young adult, there are a bunch of those too.
You know you're getting old when you start measuring your life by events related to your children or grandchildren.
Older people have fewer of those, especially ones in a stable situation.
I try to always do new things so I don't wake up one day with ten years flown past me.
