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jtcmedia's review against another edition
3.0
The author repeats things a lot and goes off on tangents. Some great insight in this book but I think would have been better presented as a condensed journal article.
patchworkbunny's review against another edition
4.0
Time is a funny old thing. It drags whilst we’re at work or in a waiting room yet flies by at the weekend and everyone is convinced that times speeds up as we get older. In Time Warped, Claudia Hammond looks at the theories behind why this happens, investigating the mind boggling world of time perception.
It’s an incredibly fascinating book for anyone that has wondered why time appears to change so much. Perhaps if you already know a lot of psychology the book re-treads familiar subjects but for the curious minded, it is at just the right level to be educational and entertaining. The inner workings of the brain are miraculous and mysterious, and Claudia is keen to imply that there are no absolutes in the science of psychology. There are many theories mentioned which have been debunked but overall it gives an all-round picture of what might be going on inside our heads.
Some of the experiments are downright bizarre. Most are historical and none are Claudia’s doing; from the volunteers who were dropped backwards off the top of a skyscraper to the Frenchman who lived in an ice cave for two months. Yet what strikes me most, is that most of what we’ve learned has come though those who have suffered brain trauma or live with mental illness.
Whilst it’s not a self-help book, the final chapter is entitled Changing Your Relationship with Time which gives a few tips to some of the most common aspects we perceive as problems. I had joked at work that I’d learn how to make the day go faster by the end, but this was the weakest part of the book. Some of it was due to the nature of my job and others felt like things that you could have picked up easily by paying attention to the previous chapters. Yet overall, it was a fascinating read and has made me want to read her other book, Emotional Rollercoaster.
It’s an incredibly fascinating book for anyone that has wondered why time appears to change so much. Perhaps if you already know a lot of psychology the book re-treads familiar subjects but for the curious minded, it is at just the right level to be educational and entertaining. The inner workings of the brain are miraculous and mysterious, and Claudia is keen to imply that there are no absolutes in the science of psychology. There are many theories mentioned which have been debunked but overall it gives an all-round picture of what might be going on inside our heads.
Some of the experiments are downright bizarre. Most are historical and none are Claudia’s doing; from the volunteers who were dropped backwards off the top of a skyscraper to the Frenchman who lived in an ice cave for two months. Yet what strikes me most, is that most of what we’ve learned has come though those who have suffered brain trauma or live with mental illness.
Whilst it’s not a self-help book, the final chapter is entitled Changing Your Relationship with Time which gives a few tips to some of the most common aspects we perceive as problems. I had joked at work that I’d learn how to make the day go faster by the end, but this was the weakest part of the book. Some of it was due to the nature of my job and others felt like things that you could have picked up easily by paying attention to the previous chapters. Yet overall, it was a fascinating read and has made me want to read her other book, Emotional Rollercoaster.
hoboken's review against another edition
5.0
Why does time speed up as we age? Why does time crawl when we aren't having fun? Why is there never enough of it? Why can we never judge accurately how much time things are going to take? Why can't we remember happy things from the past and forget the awful things? Why do we catastrophize about the future? Should we live more in the present and how can we? A compendium of fascinating research on how time feels and why it's always changing. Makes a nice companion book to Kaku's The Future of the Mind on how the brain works. Charmingly and interestingly written with little experiments you can do as you go and places on the web for further exploration like TheTimeParadox.com where you can take the Zimbardo Time Perspective Inventory and find out whether you're mostly Past Negative, Present Hedonistic, or Future Transcendental. And suggestions in the final chapter for how to help yourself control your attitude towards time so you can get through it more satisfactorily.
finlaaaay's review against another edition
3.0
A book about time perception, the central thesis kind of investigating why when we go on holiday we feel like we're there forever, doing millions of activities, but afterwards feel like it's flown by. A feeling I know all too well. It was interesting and held my attention when I was reading it on the train. It delves into self-help a little at the end, too, warning people not to try and have too many "new" experiences, which can be exhausting and mess with our perception of time (advice which I wasn't following).
A bit repetitive overall but fine
A bit repetitive overall but fine
nicolejames143's review against another edition
3.0
A truly engrossing book that answered some of my questions about time perception in an informative and accessible way. However, my copy had a staggering amount of errors and needed much more editing than it received, which was extremely distracting.
em_ham's review against another edition
3.0
Time Warped was an enjoyable, easy read with plenty of relevance to most people's experience. It was a little repetitive - for example Hammond explains a concept she calls the 'Holiday Paradox' many times - but otherwise I liked this book, though I wasn't blown away by it. Perhaps I expected too much of it in terms of improving how I deal with time speeding away!
Some things I thought were interesting:
- Our surprise at how quickly/slowly time seems to have passed may be linked to how in tune 'prospective' (at the time) and 'retrospective' estimations of time passing are. If we're having lots of new, exciting experiences, time flies, but retrospectively, it can seem the time passed slowly as a lot of new memory content was generated; if we're bored and inactive, time drags, but retrospectively, seems to have vanished because we have few memories of the period
- It's apparently universal to imagine that we'll have more space in our schedule in the future, and to never learn that that just isn't true...
- We're poor at predicting how we will feel in the future - for both positive and negative possible experiences, we focus on the most extreme and immediate aspects, and overlook the more neutral details or how novelty/devastation can subside
- Animals don't imagine possible futures the way we do, and our ability to mentally time-travel makes us unique.
Some things I thought were interesting:
- Our surprise at how quickly/slowly time seems to have passed may be linked to how in tune 'prospective' (at the time) and 'retrospective' estimations of time passing are. If we're having lots of new, exciting experiences, time flies, but retrospectively, it can seem the time passed slowly as a lot of new memory content was generated; if we're bored and inactive, time drags, but retrospectively, seems to have vanished because we have few memories of the period
- It's apparently universal to imagine that we'll have more space in our schedule in the future, and to never learn that that just isn't true...
- We're poor at predicting how we will feel in the future - for both positive and negative possible experiences, we focus on the most extreme and immediate aspects, and overlook the more neutral details or how novelty/devastation can subside
- Animals don't imagine possible futures the way we do, and our ability to mentally time-travel makes us unique.
cazzalarouge's review against another edition
4.0
Some fascinating concepts explained and explored. Got a little bit plodding as the book went on though. I could definitely revisit some chapters though to refresh my memory about certain things as it is very clear in its explanations.
coala's review against another edition
5.0
Claudia Hammond geht in ihrem Buch der spannenden Frage nach, wie wir Zeit empfinden. Denn die Erfahrung von Zeit wird eigentlich von unserem Verstand erzeugt und kann daher ganz unterschiedlich wahrgenommen werden. Dabei bietet sie viele anschauliche Beispiele und behandelt eine Vielzahl von Themen. Man lernt unter anderem, wie Zeit visuell dargestellt wird oder unser Gehirn Zeit auf ganz natürliche Weise misst. Dass wir allzu oft gedanklich weit in der Zukunft stecken und oft nicht den Augenblick genießen können, ohne an andere zünftige Ereignisse zu denken. Und trotzdem freut man sich mehr auf eine Reise und deren Planung als wenn es dann wirklich so weit ist (Der Weg ist das Ziel.).
Die Autorin schafft es, ihre Gedanken und Thesen auf angenehme und anschauliche Weise zu vermitteln. Dabei kommt sie manchmal etwas zu Lehrerhaft rüber, wenn sie am Anfang eines jeden Kapitels erzählt, was den Leser erwartet - der Lesefluss ist dadurch etwas gestört. Jedoch kann man dadurch auch wunderbar zu den einzelnen Kapiteln springen, die einen im Moment interessieren. Man merkt in jeden Fall der Autorin die Begeisterung für das Thema an und man kann ihr auch als Laie gut folgen. Der Schreibstil ist professionell und dennoch nicht zu hochtrabend. Sehr praktisch sind zudem Tipps am Ende des Buches zu Problemen, die wahrscheinlich jeder kennt. Sie sollen helfen, sein Verhältnis zur Zeit zu ändern.
"Tick, tack" ist ein erstaunliches Buch, in dem sicherlich jeder etwas lernen kann und das zum Nachdenken und zur Selbstreflexion anregt. Anschaulich erklärt und vermittelt kann man sehr einfach von Kapitel zu Kapitel springen und das Buch je nach Situation immer wieder nutzen. Auf jeden Fall eine Empfehlung, wer sich für das Thema interessiert.
Die Autorin schafft es, ihre Gedanken und Thesen auf angenehme und anschauliche Weise zu vermitteln. Dabei kommt sie manchmal etwas zu Lehrerhaft rüber, wenn sie am Anfang eines jeden Kapitels erzählt, was den Leser erwartet - der Lesefluss ist dadurch etwas gestört. Jedoch kann man dadurch auch wunderbar zu den einzelnen Kapiteln springen, die einen im Moment interessieren. Man merkt in jeden Fall der Autorin die Begeisterung für das Thema an und man kann ihr auch als Laie gut folgen. Der Schreibstil ist professionell und dennoch nicht zu hochtrabend. Sehr praktisch sind zudem Tipps am Ende des Buches zu Problemen, die wahrscheinlich jeder kennt. Sie sollen helfen, sein Verhältnis zur Zeit zu ändern.
"Tick, tack" ist ein erstaunliches Buch, in dem sicherlich jeder etwas lernen kann und das zum Nachdenken und zur Selbstreflexion anregt. Anschaulich erklärt und vermittelt kann man sehr einfach von Kapitel zu Kapitel springen und das Buch je nach Situation immer wieder nutzen. Auf jeden Fall eine Empfehlung, wer sich für das Thema interessiert.
quotidianwriter's review against another edition
5.0
There tends to be a lot of overlap between books when it comes to reading pop psychology, but Time Warped offers something different. It is narrow in focus yet broad in scope, examining time perception, the idea that the experience of time is created by our minds—that time is weirdly elastic.
The book covers a panoply of topics, from how our brains seem to naturally measure time passing to our visual representations of time (The latter section was very abstract to me, probably because I always view time as linear and not as a three-dimensional slinky or oval. Now I feel boring). The journalistic writing style is very engaging, combining human interest stories with research studies, à la Malcolm Gladwell. The anecdotes were fascinating; you’ll read about a cliff diver, a prisoner in Gaza, a man isolating himself in a cave in France, and a plane hijacking, among others.
The sections can feel disjointed, as if part of separate news stories. There’s a lack of flow. The topics are obviously related, but Hammond lectures like a passionate professor, excited to blurt out every piece of information that comes to mind. You can hear her enthusiasm in the tone and it is very contagious, but hard to follow at times. One other minor annoyance for me was the repetition of “I’ll talk about X more in chapter #,” even toward the end. I know there’s more book left! You don’t need to tell me that every time.
There was one idea that particularly resonated with me, and it is the idea that our brains are stuck in the future tense. The anticipation of a trip as you’re planning it often feels more gratifying than the trip itself (like a different definition of “it’s the journey, not the destination”). You try to “be in the moment” and take in a beautiful view without allowing yourself to be distracted by dinner plans or what to see next. Most of us don’t keep journals describing all the big and small moments of happiness in our lives, and those memories fade quickly into obscurity, forever lost. It can be depressing to think about how our brains are wired.
Hammond also provides insights about memory that I hadn’t considered: “Our unreliable memories might feel like a deficit, but they facilitate mental time-travel into the future.” Less cognitive load means more flexibility. She also suggests that perhaps the primary purpose of memory “has nothing to do with looking back, but more to do with allowing us to look forward and imagine possible futures.” I have read a lot about memory over the years, but that blew my mind.
People seem fond of turning their noses up at self-help books, but I really enjoyed the practical tips given at the book’s end. Here are a few of my favorites (mostly for the benefit of my future self):
+ Practice mental imagery for the things you want to accomplish. If you need to remember to get eggs at the store, visualize the steps it takes to get there, including finding the aisle and checking for cracks in the eggs. Instead of imagining the outcome (like acing an exam), imagine the process (studying at your desk in the evenings). Picture every detail. You’ll be more likely to complete the task.
+ To make time pass faster and increase concentration, practice mindfulness techniques. Take deep breaths. Notice the details in the mundane.
+ You will not have more time in the future. Before you agree to do something, imagine that it is happening next week instead of months from now and see if you feel the same way.
+ To better estimate how long something will take, ask someone else how long they think it will take you. We tend to underestimate the duration for ourselves but not for others. (I asked my wife how long she thought it would take me to finish writing my novel and she said, quite frankly, “Two years.” I’m banking on that.)
+ If you’re constantly anxious about the future, imagine putting your individual worries into a box under the bed and closing it until you decide to retrieve them again. Or set aside 15 minutes in the morning to do nothing but worry about the future. Make a list of your worries and think about them, but once the time is up, remind yourself not to contemplate them again until your next scheduled worry time.
+ Most importantly, more memories are the key to a longer life. My own advice: Have a lot of interests and be open to new experiences. Plan vacations or even day trips throughout the year. Visit museums, eat at new restaurants, volunteer, go for walks in a different park every weekend, seek out events and classes, from blacksmithing and painting to improv comedy and LEGO conventions. There is so much to do and see in this world. Experience it.
The book covers a panoply of topics, from how our brains seem to naturally measure time passing to our visual representations of time (The latter section was very abstract to me, probably because I always view time as linear and not as a three-dimensional slinky or oval. Now I feel boring). The journalistic writing style is very engaging, combining human interest stories with research studies, à la Malcolm Gladwell. The anecdotes were fascinating; you’ll read about a cliff diver, a prisoner in Gaza, a man isolating himself in a cave in France, and a plane hijacking, among others.
The sections can feel disjointed, as if part of separate news stories. There’s a lack of flow. The topics are obviously related, but Hammond lectures like a passionate professor, excited to blurt out every piece of information that comes to mind. You can hear her enthusiasm in the tone and it is very contagious, but hard to follow at times. One other minor annoyance for me was the repetition of “I’ll talk about X more in chapter #,” even toward the end. I know there’s more book left! You don’t need to tell me that every time.
There was one idea that particularly resonated with me, and it is the idea that our brains are stuck in the future tense. The anticipation of a trip as you’re planning it often feels more gratifying than the trip itself (like a different definition of “it’s the journey, not the destination”). You try to “be in the moment” and take in a beautiful view without allowing yourself to be distracted by dinner plans or what to see next. Most of us don’t keep journals describing all the big and small moments of happiness in our lives, and those memories fade quickly into obscurity, forever lost. It can be depressing to think about how our brains are wired.
Hammond also provides insights about memory that I hadn’t considered: “Our unreliable memories might feel like a deficit, but they facilitate mental time-travel into the future.” Less cognitive load means more flexibility. She also suggests that perhaps the primary purpose of memory “has nothing to do with looking back, but more to do with allowing us to look forward and imagine possible futures.” I have read a lot about memory over the years, but that blew my mind.
People seem fond of turning their noses up at self-help books, but I really enjoyed the practical tips given at the book’s end. Here are a few of my favorites (mostly for the benefit of my future self):
+ Practice mental imagery for the things you want to accomplish. If you need to remember to get eggs at the store, visualize the steps it takes to get there, including finding the aisle and checking for cracks in the eggs. Instead of imagining the outcome (like acing an exam), imagine the process (studying at your desk in the evenings). Picture every detail. You’ll be more likely to complete the task.
+ To make time pass faster and increase concentration, practice mindfulness techniques. Take deep breaths. Notice the details in the mundane.
+ You will not have more time in the future. Before you agree to do something, imagine that it is happening next week instead of months from now and see if you feel the same way.
+ To better estimate how long something will take, ask someone else how long they think it will take you. We tend to underestimate the duration for ourselves but not for others. (I asked my wife how long she thought it would take me to finish writing my novel and she said, quite frankly, “Two years.” I’m banking on that.)
+ If you’re constantly anxious about the future, imagine putting your individual worries into a box under the bed and closing it until you decide to retrieve them again. Or set aside 15 minutes in the morning to do nothing but worry about the future. Make a list of your worries and think about them, but once the time is up, remind yourself not to contemplate them again until your next scheduled worry time.
+ Most importantly, more memories are the key to a longer life. My own advice: Have a lot of interests and be open to new experiences. Plan vacations or even day trips throughout the year. Visit museums, eat at new restaurants, volunteer, go for walks in a different park every weekend, seek out events and classes, from blacksmithing and painting to improv comedy and LEGO conventions. There is so much to do and see in this world. Experience it.
readerofthings's review against another edition
2.0
I think this in a interesting concept, exploring the idea of what time means and how it can appear to be elastic. Sometimes time can seems to expand and other times contract. She has some good examples of how our time perception changes in different situations. I could not, however, really get into this book and ended up giving up after not a long ways in to it. There are lots of short stories and examples of situations, but there does not seem to be one big narrative or overall theme, other than that time perception is a mysterious phenomenon. After too many short examples, it started to lose my attention.