Out of time, out of mind: Multifaceted time perceptions and mental wellbeing during the COVID-19 pandemic

Abstract

Individuals commonly report feeling rushed in industrial societies such as the United States. However, social and economic upheavals such as disasters, recessions, and pandemics complicate perceptions of time by disrupting routines and creating experiences of trauma. In existing research, time perceptions usually are studied separately, leaving unclear how individuals in the United States might experience time in multifaceted ways while working, caring, and grieving. Moreover, previous research has not established whether multifaceted time perceptions each carry independent influences on mental wellbeing, or how they are shaped by sociodemographic background or pandemic-related stressors. Drawing on national Gallup data collected during the COVID-19 pandemic (Spring 2021), we find that Americans generally report some degree of feeling rushed, and also perceive multiple types of time disorientation involving slowness, quickness, and days and weeks blending together. Perceptions that time is moving too quickly or too slowly show an inverse relationship, as expected. Feeling rushed and that days or weeks are blending together also show relationships with both of these perceptions over a 3-month recall period. Importantly, we find that each of these time perceptions is shaped uniquely by income, work hours, age, or having children at home, and that each matters for understanding levels of depressive and anxiety symptoms and overall sense of mastery or control in life. Pandemic-related stressors, including economic strain, working from home, homeschooling a child, and severe household conflict, also show considerable relationships with these multifaceted time perceptions.