Then it should be the opposite, your dread of going to places you dont like should cause the out trip to feel shorter while the excitement of going home should make it feel longer
Same with the Lord of the Rings trilogy. The way to Mordor comprised most of 2 1/2 to 2 2/3 books, but the return, even including dealing with the take-over of the Shire and the "happily ever after" bit is minuscule in comparison.
highly dogwood of that will see below email with her up some point it looks really well if so where there anything like them the only ones I've just like that they could
My hypothesis is that anxiety plays a large roll in this effect, along with expectations. When traveling to a destination you want to be there on time, you want to get there safely, and you have to navigate; all at the same time. Which will increase stress and alertness. When traveling "home" you may want to get there quickly but you aren't racing time anymore. You can enjoy your return trip and enjoyment usually makes time seem to fly by.
I am proposing another explanation: On the outbound trip you are aware that you have something to do in front of you. Say you have to shop for groceries. So the way there is filled with the energy of: I gotta do this, I gotta get there. And then the way there is kind of an obstacle you have to surmount. On the way back, the motivational energy has collapsed. You've done the thing you wanted to do. The motivational focus point lies behind you. Your to-do is done and you know you're going to get home anyway. So you're more relaxed, your thoughts and consciousness flow more freely. You actively or passively reflect on the episode that just lies behind you. On the outbound trip you have an agenda. There is adrenalin in your blood. You have to be alert for whatever it is, you are going to do. On the way back, the way is no obstacle that lies between you and the goal of this episode, the way home is an afterthought and you probable have more everyday-dissociation.
Yep, but then again I have dyslexia which messes with internal time. Dyspraxia, Dysgraphia, Dyscalculia and Dysnomia also do the same effect; as there linked to problems with short term memory transferring to long term.
When I used to get in the Freightliner for my weekly trip from Spokane to Seattle, I would turn off the stereo and write books in my head. It was an 11 hour round-trip and by the time I got home I'd have days of writing to do. It was incredible how fast my trip went when occupying my brain that way. If I had a repetitive job in the machine shop, I could FLY through my work by letting my brain go elsewhere while my body worked incredibly efficiently. It was as though I was LETTING myself be amazingly efficient by taking my brain out of the equation. Plus, when I was done, I had all this writing work done, in my head and the story was ready to put on paper (computer, really).
I literally have the exact opposite experience. Until watching this video, it never even occurred to me that anyone would think the return trip is shorter. The return trip ALWAYS seems longer to me. Going somewhere, I'm excited or in a hurry, coming home, I just can't wait to get home and everything seems to just drag on. On longer trips, the last hour especially drags on forever.
In many places traffic lights are timed to create a smooth flow of cars that travels the speed limit. If you're in a hurry you're likely speeding and getting to each light before it expects your packet of cars to get there.
I get that with walking. EVERY SINGLE GODDAMN TIME I'm rushing somewhere slow ass people just clump up around me or the bus I'm on just goes super duper slow >_
What altrocks said can be true; there’s also that fact that when you’re in a rush you notice everything that’s doesn’t go smoothly for you. Plus there’s confirmation bias where you remember every time you hit a red light (confirmation) and forget every time you don’t (bias).
I thought this was also a factor: we are often running late for whatever we're going to, so we're hyper-aware of the time, but when we go home we're usually not late for anything, so the trip is more relaxing and it just flies by.
I prefer novelty and therefore choose a different route to and from a destination ! I could not care less about how much time it may take to get there. Certainly the goal is to glean or learn something upon arriving at the destination. However, I find that on the journey is usually where much of my personal growth takes place. Peace !
I've experienced both ways. Anytime I'm anxious in general to do something or get somewhere time feels like it slows down. I hate waiting in lines when I have no one to talk to, and I hate driving long distances - especially when I get bored with my music (after listening to the same songs several times in a row).
this sounds much like a quote I personally said back in the 90s when I was just out of highschool. I began to realise that the passage of time was inversely proportional to your perception of it, or the attention you give to it. Think of a microwave minute versus a minute on a roller coaster, or that last minute at work. Some instances you are intently focused on the passage of time, and therefore seems to go by slower than normal. However when you are having fun or otherwise distracted you are paying very little attention to the passage of time and therefore it passes much quickly, or seems to do so. In reality time while stationary is a constant however if you totally ignore it you will feel like it passes much quicker. Which is my hypothesis as to why a weeks vacation goes by much quicker than the week waiting for that first day off.
For my work commute, my return DOES take less time. With so many other cars around, I get stuck going exactly the speed limit on the way there and have more stops. When I'm on my way back between 10pm and 2am, I'm pretty much the only one out and can go the 5mph allowed over speed limit, breeze right through yield signs and take corners as fast as my car can handle them.
Wow. I have the complete reverse happen to me. The trip back always seems to take longer. I've assumed it has to do with looking forward to wherever I'm going versus having nothing really to look forward to upon returning.
A couple of years ago, I noticed my brain did this when I was walking back and forth in an area I had never been in before. I hypothesised that the first trip feels like it takes ages, the second trip feels like it takes no time at all and then the third trip takes even longer than the first one. this video would kinda explain that being wrong about the first distance makes you overestimate the second trip and then being so off again makes you underestimate the third trip, just as I hypothesised.
The thing is, my daily commute is going uphill to work and downhill back home, so the return trip actually does take less time. I've never heard of it happening when both ways take the same amount of time.
I've got the exact opposite situation, but I know why it happens. I live a little further than a mile away from my job, and walk to work every day, then home again in the afternoon. Because I'm on my feet all day at work, I'm usually pretty tired when it's time to go home, and I'm not really looking forward to that walk home. I don't really pay attention to the various landmarks on the way in to work, but do use all those landmarks on the way home to gauge how much longer I have to go. Since I'm paying more attention to my surroundings on the way home, it seems to take longer, because I'm checking my position relative to those landmarks much more often than I really need to. It also doesn't help that the trip to work is slightly down hill, letting me use less energy to get there in the morning, but need more energy, when I'm already tired and wiped out, on the way home. I have timed both trips multiple times, and the times work out to be about the same. I'm pretty sure the same situation applies to the other way as well. When you're driving in a car, you're energized in the morning, and although you know where you're going, you still gauge your position to work by the landmarks you pass. On the way home, your tired, and just want to get home. Because you already know the way home, consciously and subconsciously, your mind half zones out, leaving you partially running on automatic. With your attention not fully focused, your perception of the passage of time is skewed, giving you the perception that the trip took less time.
I've always thought of it as the time it takes to get back is a smaller percentage of the entire time of the trip, so it feels shorter. Like if you went on a 60 minute trip, taking 20 minutes to get to a destination, by 20 minutes you will have spent all of your trip just getting there. Say you stay there for 20 minutes and start heading back, well 20 minutes back will only have been 1/3 of your entire trip.
I always feel like the passage of time varies depending on how long I've been awake. Mornings go quick, afternoons take a little longer, nights drag out a bit, and if you've ever had insomnia you might know what I mean when I say that the middle of the night feels like an entire extra day between yesterday and today.
Its the home circle. Home feels close until you are far enough away. Then, on the way back, once you cross the threshold of "home" you're already back. Even though you still have X amount of time before you're already home
I walk everywhere. Worrying about how long it will take makes it seem way longer. If you think about anything else other than getting to your destination, time seems to pass very quickly. I always use that trick, and it always works.
when i return home both ways looks always same duration ... to store is travel, shop, wait to pay(longest and borring), travel ; if it is vocation: travel, search where you need to stay (tired) , vocation , travel , rest home in second case (travel+search) is longer, but both my "travel" times look same when i am back at home and if you travel without company feels longer then alone while you are traveling or walking
Well for me it depends on the trip. If it is someplace that I am either super excited for or really not excited for both ways will take Forever. If it is just a chore, that there seems longer.
For several months I made a weekly trip which was about 80 minutes, 1 hour appointment, and back. Every single time the way back felt faster. Doesn't work on my daily commute though.
My family is driving home from New Orleans back to the Illinois-Wisconsin border and it’s going sooooo much faster. In all fairness, we are hauling ass to make it a one day trip instead of two and minimizing the breaks we take
I'm the opposite, going to and from work each day. It is an hour on the train each way, it seems so short in the morning but drags on coming home each night
I've actually never experienced this effect. Driving home for an hour after a 18 hour shift is a looong pain in the ass actually. Trying to keep myself awake and deal with traffic is a nightmare.
I find the time taking the way back, when out of my control such as on a train, is excruciatingly longer. I just go nuts wishing the train would speed up.
I never knew this was a thing, obviously not everyone experiences it, if I go somewhere it usually feels like it takes the same amount of time to get there and back. I suppose my perception might be changed by what I expect to happen at the end of the journey, what I am doing while travelling... but that could be for either the trip out or back.
These two ideas only make a little bit of sense to me. My intuition tells me that it has much more to do with a 'time flies when you're having fun' sort of effect, where you look forward to getting home and relaxing more than going out to do chores/go to work. It fits into the 'expectations' idea, but not perfectly. The not-so-hypothetical example I can relate to this is the fact that people often don't want to think about work/chores while on their way to them, forcing them to almost resent the ride there, whereas people are generally excited about what they're going to do when they get home, whether it's eating something or watching the next episode of their currently favorite show.
I've never experienced a difference when going somewhere for work or school...the ride seems exactly the same either way. But for vacations it seems to take forever to get there, but then the return home after goes by quick. Used to experience this all the time going to my grandparents; it was a 4 hour drive and we needed a stop on the way up because it felt so long we needed to get out of the car, yet we commonly drove home non-stop with no issues about being stuck in the car.
Or... maybe when we go to a certain location, we expect things to be done - be it meeting other people, buying groceries, heading for work, etc. Therefore our brains are more active, gathering as much data. And we know that the more active the brain is, the longer the time feels. But when the task is done, we feel a sense of release, and all we're concerned about is going home, which means our brains doesn't feel like being as active. Hence a sense that time felt shorter.
This has never happened to me? But I do long distance running and even though I have ran the same amount of miles on the same exact course more times than I can count, I always underestimate how far it is? Does anyone have this?
I usually experience the opposite effect. Usually because I am actively thinking about why I'm traveling. On the return trip, my mind wonders & makes the trip seem longer. ??
But my last trip to Korea was literally shorter on the way back. The two flights there took 24hrs total. While the way back took 19hrs. So sometimes it really is true.
The violation of expectations does not explain why watching a video of a "return trip" feels shorter. Because it's a video. Why would I care about the length of the video more or less depending on if I'm told it's going forwards or backwards?
*_...if you're flying west at night from Gatwick to LAX the sky outside is dark for the duration making it easy to nap for 10 hours till the landing pattern jostles the plane a bit..._* *_...2. the other possibility was prompted in an English episodic TV show where the starship captain had a hole-in-his-memory..._*
I don't know why, to me it is the other way around, going to places is shorter than returning home. Sometimes returning home really sucks, it feels like it takes forever sometimes.
Expectation violation doesn't really make sense to me. It might be true for the first few times you go somewhere, but all mammals tend to oscillate between the same 6 locations about 99% of the time. You learn how long they take pretty quickly. I think it has to do with how much processing you're doing on the way out vs the way in. You construct your past perception of time based not just on events, but on internal processing as well. Your brain is probably working harder, and more stressed on the way out, because you have to mentally prepare for future events. On the way home, you're more relaxed, and so you brain can drop into a lower gear. Less overall activity and fewer internal events may register as less time having passed. I think this is separate from your moment-to-moment sense of time (like your psychic sense of when the microwave is about to ding), and affects your past perception more strongly than your present. Being home is safer than being outside, so you're less stressed. You might be able to flip the effect if you were going from somewhere relaxing, say Moe's Tavern, to a stressful situation at home.
Explain why going out of town for meeting is more stressful than coming home from a meeting... Because that's how I feel, especially in super crowded train stations! And it's weird!!!
If I do something and instinctively and then I don't notice anything but the moment that I actually try to do it I f****** really bad now how long did it take for that food to cook for example
Okay but like why would my return trip be more familiar than my initial trip for things like school and work? The adjusment thing also wouldn'tfit with this.
Hupf it always feels like it takes a shorter time for me to get somewhere and longer when I go home because I am always excited to go some and not so when I go home
I don't look forward to going places.
I look forward to going home.
That's my explanation.
Then it should be the opposite, your dread of going to places you dont like should cause the out trip to feel shorter while the excitement of going home should make it feel longer
@@ericsmith1792 Time flies when you're enjoying yourself. It drags when you're not.
thats not how it works, its like waiting seems way longer than when youre say playing a game on your phone
@Medicinal Blood Is that really necessary
You know you are an adult when you get excited going home
True. In Tolkien's "The Hobbit, or There and Back Again" the trip there comprises most of the story. The way back is like a cut-scene.
Same with the Lord of the Rings trilogy. The way to Mordor comprised most of 2 1/2 to 2 2/3 books, but the return, even including dealing with the take-over of the Shire and the "happily ever after" bit is minuscule in comparison.
"Are we there yet?"
"No."
"Are we there yet?"
"No."
"Are we there yet?"
"No."
"Are we there yet?"
"N- wait!
...No."
FINALLY SOMEONE MADE A VIDEO ABOUT THIS I’VE BEEN WONDERING FOR YEARS
Same
Hi
highly dogwood of that will see below email with her up some point it looks really well if so where there anything like them the only ones I've just like that they could
I thought it was kind of the other way around!
The trip home always seems to drag on and on... especially when driving for hours or days :o
Rebecca Gorodetzky for me when I go grocery shopping it feels shorter, but when I go to and from work, it seems longer :D
I experience this “shorter-the-second-time” phenomenon all the time when trying to show someone a gif or video I had just watched.
ye, it works just like that.
I seem to always feel the opposite. Going home always seems to take SO long.
Babarudra same
My hypothesis is that anxiety plays a large roll in this effect, along with expectations. When traveling to a destination you want to be there on time, you want to get there safely, and you have to navigate; all at the same time. Which will increase stress and alertness.
When traveling "home" you may want to get there quickly but you aren't racing time anymore. You can enjoy your return trip and enjoyment usually makes time seem to fly by.
Makes sense to me.
I've never experienced this in journeys, but if I watch a video a second time, it seems to go by quicker.
Your voice makes this one of the smoothest of most SciShow videos. Definitely one of the better hosts.
“What kind of wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey stuff is this?!”
-Brit Garner
Austin Moon actually it’s from doctor who
I don't know... I always felt like the walk of shame was longer 🙈
Quick Fix - Thought Provoking Videos shopoholic answer
I am proposing another explanation: On the outbound trip you are aware that you have something to do in front of you. Say you have to shop for groceries. So the way there is filled with the energy of: I gotta do this, I gotta get there. And then the way there is kind of an obstacle you have to surmount. On the way back, the motivational energy has collapsed. You've done the thing you wanted to do. The motivational focus point lies behind you. Your to-do is done and you know you're going to get home anyway. So you're more relaxed, your thoughts and consciousness flow more freely. You actively or passively reflect on the episode that just lies behind you.
On the outbound trip you have an agenda. There is adrenalin in your blood. You have to be alert for whatever it is, you are going to do. On the way back, the way is no obstacle that lies between you and the goal of this episode, the way home is an afterthought and you probable have more everyday-dissociation.
A big ball of wibbly-wobbly-timey-wimey stuff
It's cause your mind is busy thinking if this whole trip was ever worth it🤔
I always feel like it takes longer because you have nothing to look forward to going back :,(
So school is better?
Is there anybody else that has never experienced this? First time I hear about this too
Yep, but then again I have dyslexia which messes with internal time. Dyspraxia, Dysgraphia, Dyscalculia and Dysnomia also do the same effect; as there linked to problems with short term memory transferring to long term.
Exacom98 same. Never heard of this before. I've asked friends and family in fact and they're the same. The way back either feels the same or longer.
I would actually say the exact opposite
yeah I've never even heard of it
When I used to get in the Freightliner for my weekly trip from Spokane to Seattle, I would turn off the stereo and write books in my head. It was an 11 hour round-trip and by the time I got home I'd have days of writing to do. It was incredible how fast my trip went when occupying my brain that way.
If I had a repetitive job in the machine shop, I could FLY through my work by letting my brain go elsewhere while my body worked incredibly efficiently. It was as though I was LETTING myself be amazingly efficient by taking my brain out of the equation. Plus, when I was done, I had all this writing work done, in my head and the story was ready to put on paper (computer, really).
It is like watching a movie or a video for the first time, it feels long, but the second time it feels faster
Nice Doctor Who reference
I literally have the exact opposite experience. Until watching this video, it never even occurred to me that anyone would think the return trip is shorter. The return trip ALWAYS seems longer to me. Going somewhere, I'm excited or in a hurry, coming home, I just can't wait to get home and everything seems to just drag on. On longer trips, the last hour especially drags on forever.
So why is it that when I'm pressed for time,all the traffic light turn red?
In many places traffic lights are timed to create a smooth flow of cars that travels the speed limit. If you're in a hurry you're likely speeding and getting to each light before it expects your packet of cars to get there.
I get that with walking. EVERY SINGLE GODDAMN TIME I'm rushing somewhere slow ass people just clump up around me or the bus I'm on just goes super duper slow >_
What altrocks said can be true; there’s also that fact that when you’re in a rush you notice everything that’s doesn’t go smoothly for you. Plus there’s confirmation bias where you remember every time you hit a red light (confirmation) and forget every time you don’t (bias).
Not really,I don't speed,and I also notice when I have all the time in world,the lights a more often green.
Christel Headington Hate to break it to you but that just isn’t true. Basic psychology explains the exact phenomenon you’re speaking of.
It took me way less time to watch this backwards...
* narrows eyes *
Can't say I've ever noticed this effect before.
It's so good to get back home, even after the best vacations ever.
I thought this was also a factor: we are often running late for whatever we're going to, so we're hyper-aware of the time, but when we go home we're usually not late for anything, so the trip is more relaxing and it just flies by.
I prefer novelty and therefore choose a different route to and from a destination ! I could not care less about how much time it may take to get there. Certainly the goal is to glean or learn something upon arriving at the destination. However, I find that on the journey is usually where much of my personal growth takes place. Peace !
Was just wondering about this today! Thanks!
*Why the Way Back Feels Shorter: A Case Study*
*Me:* [walking] So... I have to be there at 17:30. Okay.
*Also me:* [sprinting] Going hooooomeeee!!!!
I've experienced both ways. Anytime I'm anxious in general to do something or get somewhere time feels like it slows down. I hate waiting in lines when I have no one to talk to, and I hate driving long distances - especially when I get bored with my music (after listening to the same songs several times in a row).
this sounds much like a quote I personally said back in the 90s when I was just out of highschool. I began to realise that the passage of time was inversely proportional to your perception of it, or the attention you give to it. Think of a microwave minute versus a minute on a roller coaster, or that last minute at work. Some instances you are intently focused on the passage of time, and therefore seems to go by slower than normal. However when you are having fun or otherwise distracted you are paying very little attention to the passage of time and therefore it passes much quickly, or seems to do so. In reality time while stationary is a constant however if you totally ignore it you will feel like it passes much quicker. Which is my hypothesis as to why a weeks vacation goes by much quicker than the week waiting for that first day off.
Weird...I was just noticing this phenomenon yesterday with my taxi ride....y'all got weirdly on point timing
For my work commute, my return DOES take less time. With so many other cars around, I get stuck going exactly the speed limit on the way there and have more stops. When I'm on my way back between 10pm and 2am, I'm pretty much the only one out and can go the 5mph allowed over speed limit, breeze right through yield signs and take corners as fast as my car can handle them.
I experience this every time. For me it’s the anxiety of getting there on time. The ride home is whenever we get there.
i always figured it was literally just the anticipation of arriving, and then the sadness of leaving (driving to Grandma's house)
I know that feeling. I recall several trips home feeling much shorter than they actually were!
I always notice and love her cool shirts.
I have never experienced a return trip effect, but I truly love the doctor who reference.
Wow. I have the complete reverse happen to me. The trip back always seems to take longer. I've assumed it has to do with looking forward to wherever I'm going versus having nothing really to look forward to upon returning.
A couple of years ago, I noticed my brain did this when I was walking back and forth in an area I had never been in before. I hypothesised that the first trip feels like it takes ages, the second trip feels like it takes no time at all and then the third trip takes even longer than the first one. this video would kinda explain that being wrong about the first distance makes you overestimate the second trip and then being so off again makes you underestimate the third trip, just as I hypothesised.
The thing is, my daily commute is going uphill to work and downhill back home, so the return trip actually does take less time. I've never heard of it happening when both ways take the same amount of time.
I've got the exact opposite situation, but I know why it happens. I live a little further than a mile away from my job, and walk to work every day, then home again in the afternoon. Because I'm on my feet all day at work, I'm usually pretty tired when it's time to go home, and I'm not really looking forward to that walk home. I don't really pay attention to the various landmarks on the way in to work, but do use all those landmarks on the way home to gauge how much longer I have to go. Since I'm paying more attention to my surroundings on the way home, it seems to take longer, because I'm checking my position relative to those landmarks much more often than I really need to. It also doesn't help that the trip to work is slightly down hill, letting me use less energy to get there in the morning, but need more energy, when I'm already tired and wiped out, on the way home. I have timed both trips multiple times, and the times work out to be about the same.
I'm pretty sure the same situation applies to the other way as well. When you're driving in a car, you're energized in the morning, and although you know where you're going, you still gauge your position to work by the landmarks you pass. On the way home, your tired, and just want to get home. Because you already know the way home, consciously and subconsciously, your mind half zones out, leaving you partially running on automatic. With your attention not fully focused, your perception of the passage of time is skewed, giving you the perception that the trip took less time.
It's a super universal thing? I've never noticed it.
I can't be the only one who's never thought about this.
I've always wondered about this. Great to know I'm not alone.
I have never heard of this effect, nor have I noticed it in my daily travel routines
I've always thought of it as the time it takes to get back is a smaller percentage of the entire time of the trip, so it feels shorter. Like if you went on a 60 minute trip, taking 20 minutes to get to a destination, by 20 minutes you will have spent all of your trip just getting there. Say you stay there for 20 minutes and start heading back, well 20 minutes back will only have been 1/3 of your entire trip.
This is a more believable theory than anything presented, I think!
Sounds likely to me too
I always feel like the passage of time varies depending on how long I've been awake. Mornings go quick, afternoons take a little longer, nights drag out a bit, and if you've ever had insomnia you might know what I mean when I say that the middle of the night feels like an entire extra day between yesterday and today.
Its the home circle. Home feels close until you are far enough away. Then, on the way back, once you cross the threshold of "home" you're already back. Even though you still have X amount of time before you're already home
I walk everywhere. Worrying about how long it will take makes it seem way longer. If you think about anything else other than getting to your destination, time seems to pass very quickly. I always use that trick, and it always works.
when i return home both ways looks always same duration ...
to store is travel, shop, wait to pay(longest and borring), travel ;
if it is vocation: travel, search where you need to stay (tired) , vocation , travel , rest home
in second case (travel+search) is longer, but both my "travel" times look same when i am back at home
and if you travel without company feels longer then alone while you are traveling or walking
Well for me it depends on the trip. If it is someplace that I am either super excited for or really not excited for both ways will take Forever. If it is just a chore, that there seems longer.
It always takes longer to come back for me. In all circumstances. For fun vacations and for painful doctor's visits.
For several months I made a weekly trip which was about 80 minutes, 1 hour appointment, and back. Every single time the way back felt faster. Doesn't work on my daily commute though.
My family is driving home from New Orleans back to the Illinois-Wisconsin border and it’s going sooooo much faster. In all fairness, we are hauling ass to make it a one day trip instead of two and minimizing the breaks we take
Thank you! Always wondered.
I'm the opposite, going to and from work each day. It is an hour on the train each way, it seems so short in the morning but drags on coming home each night
I've actually never experienced this effect. Driving home for an hour after a 18 hour shift is a looong pain in the ass actually. Trying to keep myself awake and deal with traffic is a nightmare.
I get the exact opposite. The return trip feels like forever bc I'm usually tired and I just want to get home
I always wanted the answer for this... thanks!
I find the time taking the way back, when out of my control such as on a train, is excruciatingly longer. I just go nuts wishing the train would speed up.
as a person with anxiety thats been out of the house way too long by then.. the way home takes soooo muuuch longer.
I remember this happening on really long trips as a kid, and being totally freaked out lol
Your mind is busy recording a mental map on the way there .
Reading the comments it looks like there is a very powerful factor going on for many of us preventing the feeling of the return trip being shorter.
I never knew this was a thing, obviously not everyone experiences it, if I go somewhere it usually feels like it takes the same amount of time to get there and back. I suppose my perception might be changed by what I expect to happen at the end of the journey, what I am doing while travelling... but that could be for either the trip out or back.
I thought there was a typo in the video title since the way back always seems longer for me
Before you even said it I was like “familiarity”
This only applies to me when going to a new place. If it's a place I've been to before, the return trip home doesn't really feel any shorter to me.
These two ideas only make a little bit of sense to me. My intuition tells me that it has much more to do with a 'time flies when you're having fun' sort of effect, where you look forward to getting home and relaxing more than going out to do chores/go to work. It fits into the 'expectations' idea, but not perfectly.
The not-so-hypothetical example I can relate to this is the fact that people often don't want to think about work/chores while on their way to them, forcing them to almost resent the ride there, whereas people are generally excited about what they're going to do when they get home, whether it's eating something or watching the next episode of their currently favorite show.
I've never experienced a difference when going somewhere for work or school...the ride seems exactly the same either way.
But for vacations it seems to take forever to get there, but then the return home after goes by quick. Used to experience this all the time going to my grandparents; it was a 4 hour drive and we needed a stop on the way up because it felt so long we needed to get out of the car, yet we commonly drove home non-stop with no issues about being stuck in the car.
I like the episode but I *really* liked that shirt. Seriously, awesome shirt.
Or... maybe when we go to a certain location, we expect things to be done - be it meeting other people, buying groceries, heading for work, etc. Therefore our brains are more active, gathering as much data. And we know that the more active the brain is, the longer the time feels.
But when the task is done, we feel a sense of release, and all we're concerned about is going home, which means our brains doesn't feel like being as active. Hence a sense that time felt shorter.
This has never happened to me? But I do long distance running and even though I have ran the same amount of miles on the same exact course more times than I can count, I always underestimate how far it is? Does anyone have this?
I usually experience the opposite effect. Usually because I am actively thinking about why I'm traveling. On the return trip, my mind wonders & makes the trip seem longer. ??
But my last trip to Korea was literally shorter on the way back. The two flights there took 24hrs total. While the way back took 19hrs. So sometimes it really is true.
The violation of expectations does not explain why watching a video of a "return trip" feels shorter. Because it's a video. Why would I care about the length of the video more or less depending on if I'm told it's going forwards or backwards?
Timy whimy? I love it !!!
why does my trip to work feel like a drag? because I live in Michigan and the roads are always under construction....
I feel like I have the opposite. Every time I’m on the way back it just seems to take forever.
...is it weird that ive never experienced this and had no idea that it was a thing?
"Time is a flat circle"
*_...if you're flying west at night from Gatwick to LAX the sky outside is dark for the duration making it easy to nap for 10 hours till the landing pattern jostles the plane a bit..._*
*_...2. the other possibility was prompted in an English episodic TV show where the starship captain had a hole-in-his-memory..._*
Your words do not sway me pleasant-chested lady, aliens are still responsible for this catastrophe! Nay I say!!!
I don't know why, to me it is the other way around, going to places is shorter than returning home. Sometimes returning home really sucks, it feels like it takes forever sometimes.
Expectation violation doesn't really make sense to me. It might be true for the first few times you go somewhere, but all mammals tend to oscillate between the same 6 locations about 99% of the time. You learn how long they take pretty quickly.
I think it has to do with how much processing you're doing on the way out vs the way in. You construct your past perception of time based not just on events, but on internal processing as well. Your brain is probably working harder, and more stressed on the way out, because you have to mentally prepare for future events. On the way home, you're more relaxed, and so you brain can drop into a lower gear. Less overall activity and fewer internal events may register as less time having passed. I think this is separate from your moment-to-moment sense of time (like your psychic sense of when the microwave is about to ding), and affects your past perception more strongly than your present.
Being home is safer than being outside, so you're less stressed. You might be able to flip the effect if you were going from somewhere relaxing, say Moe's Tavern, to a stressful situation at home.
My trip to work is 11 minutes, whereas the return trip is only 9.
Does anyone (or psy show) know where Brit's shirt is from? its fabulous!
It was included in the last delivery of a mystery package gift thing. I really love it too!
Wait a minute. I get the exact opposite effect. My way back home always feels longer than getting to the place I need to be for work or errands.
Explain why going out of town for meeting is more stressful than coming home from a meeting... Because that's how I feel, especially in super crowded train stations! And it's weird!!!
If I do something and instinctively and then I don't notice anything but the moment that I actually try to do it I f****** really bad now how long did it take for that food to cook for example
Okay but like why would my return trip be more familiar than my initial trip for things like school and work? The adjusment thing also wouldn'tfit with this.
Which do we feel tired when we get bored? Please make a video on this. Thanks
Brit, you need to go back on SciShow Quiz Show!
Can you explain why so many weird things happen in the peripheral vision next
It depends on how bad you want to get back I always feel the way back takes forever
I always just called it being on autopilot. :p
Wibly wobly timy stuff got my like :D
I take offense to hindsight not being so 20/20. Let's not ruin my schtick here.
Odd yet interesting. The return trip usually feels longer to me
0:14 YES!!! DOCTOR WHO!!! (David tennant)
Hupf it always feels like it takes a shorter time for me to get somewhere and longer when I go home because I am always excited to go some and not so when I go home