How Did the Pandemic Play with Our Perception of Time?

When the Covid-19 epidemic started and we locked ourselves at home, huge changes suddenly occurred in our lives. Tragedies aside, every day is the same a monotonous life We found ourselves in it.

This monotony not only has an impact on many areas such as health, psychology or social relations, but also Even our perception has changed. How Does?

Our memory does not only include ‘what we remember’.

Our memory affects our perception of the duration of time as well as what we remember. The amount of memories that can be recalled affects our perception of how much time has passed. can narrow and expand. In fact, it is not only limited to this, our mood and emotions can also change the duration of time.

The pandemic we entered in 2020, Every day is almost the same turned it into a situation. We were reading the same news and doing the same things at home during the day. Not to mention the tragedies and uncertainty. Naturally, this affected our perception of time.

A study by cognitive neuroscientists revealed how the pandemic changed the time distance between remembered events.

Several times a month from April 2020 to January 2021, they asked at least 1,000 Americans questions from the online survey platform. According to the findings, everything closer together it seemed. In a way, the time of our memories had run out.

We also remembered well and in detail the moments when we first learned about surprising events. where we sit, how we feel, even a strange detail even…

So how did “social memory” work?

Events such as Kobe Bryant’s helicopter crash and the tragic death of George Floyd, who was killed by police officers because of racism, were also looked at. Participants were asked how clearly they could remember these events, how different they were from each other. how far It was asked what happened at that time.

If you remember, there were names like Seyfi Dursunoğlu (Huysuz Virjin), Nur Yerlitaş and Muhterem Nur that we lost during those periods. Over all these deaths It’s really hard to believe that so much time has passed.

Memory research based on past events shows that surprising events are retained in memory. “event boundaries” He realized he had created it. When we think about the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. or 9/11, our memory becomes compartmentalized. For example, events were classified as before and after 9/11.

Drawing more boundaries to a certain period of time could expand our memory of the period.

According to this hypothesis, during the quarantine period, events would spread so that they would be remembered farther from each other, but the pandemic and quarantine would bring us closer together. It put me into monotony. The ‘sameness’ in our daily activities has brought about a compressed time memory.

For example, when we go on a vacation and come back, the memories we accumulate will increase, but it may be remembered as a long period of time. a monotonous life, It also shortens the perception of time in the mind.

The participants in the study also supported this thesis. The time distance in which they remember the events that occurred during the Covid-19 epidemic, before or after the pandemic It was much closer.

Emotions and psychological problems can also play a role in memory.

Strong negative emotions can help memory work better, but an event trauma or depression If reached, this can weaken memories. Based on this, those who were most emotionally affected by the pandemic remembered the events more clearly, but their perception of time was still similar to the others.

In short, the epidemic period is in the minds of many of us, consisting of fast and compressed events It became a bad memory. Although there are many studies on the effects of emotions on memory, we need more research on how they can change the perception of time.

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