The railway Journey P33-45

The author mentioned the invention of railway annihilated the traditional time and space continuum, which formed by older transport technology. Next he talked about duration(the time spent getting from one place to another on a road) is not an objective mathematical unit, but  a subjective space- time. [p.36]

After several decades, people become more and more conscious about this concept nowadays.  This comparative time perceptual theory gradually has been developed in some psychology areas. The most notable example is waiting phenomenon. When we are waiting in line for something, the time perception we receive would be expended extremely. William James, the noted philosopher observed: “Boredom results from being attentive to the passage of time itself.” Or easier as we said: “A watched pot never spoils.”

 In order to reduce the customers’ negative experience during consuming, the service providers usually try to distract customers’ attention from waiting. Thus, more and more “service distraction” appears, e.g. TV screen, music, magazines, computers and arcade machines. These service providers realized: “Occupied Time Feels Shorter Than Unoccupied Time.” It would be called the side-effect phenomenon originated from the time when people start to notice that the meaning of time duration is not generate by numbers, but our feelings.