Daylight saving time is here, so let’s look at how we spend our time

Daylight saving time begins at 2 a.m. Sunday, March 11. Remember to turn your clocks ahead one hour (yes, you’ll lose those 60 minutes but will make them up Oct. 7, when daylight saving time ends) before going to bed. Now, let’s take a look at how we spend our time.

Why time seems to fly

Where did the time go? Do the days and months seem to be flying by compared with when you were younger? A report in Scientific American offers an explanation. In 2005, psychologists at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich conducted a study of time perception with people ages 14-99. The results showed that for short durations (an hour or week) the subjects’ perceptions did not change with age. For longer periods (years and decades) the perception of time seemed faster for those who were 40 or older.

Why the change? British psychologist Claudia Hammond wrote a book, “Time Warped: Unlocking the Mysteries of Time Perception,” that offers explanations. The simplest is that when we are 5, a year is one-fifth of our lives. But there’s much more to the reasons why time appears to quicken as we age. Hammond explains that a high concentration of strong memories occurs in the teens and 20s. These younger years form the “benchmark for our judgments of retrospective time.” Past middle age, new experiences become farther apart, and that gives the illusion that time has sped up.

Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics

How we spend the day

This chart shows the average hours per day Americans of different ages spend in selected activities. The data refer to all days of the week and were gathered by the Bureau of Labor Statistics for 2016.

Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics

Leisure time

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention calculated the rates of leisure time with inactivity by county from 2004-2008. The map shows that residents most likely to be active during their free time are from the West Coast, Colorado and Minnesota.