ABSTRACT
The awareness of time is of major importance in understanding our lives not only in the present but also in the contexts of the past and the future. Yet many people, particularly in the Western world, have an uneasy, even troubled, relationship with the notion of time in their daily existence. Most commonly expressed is the regret that we seldom have enough of it (Banks, 1983; Robinson and Godbey, 1997; Sullivan and Gershuny, 2001). Suggestions of a widespread time famine and of frequently experiencing time poverty are common, not only in organisational publications but also in lifestyle magazines and other popular media. This prevalent perception of time and its scarcity also seems to be in stark contrast to the fi ndings of Robinson and Godbey, and also Sullivan and Gershuny, who generally conclude that many people in the West have in fact gained up to seven hours of additional time per week in which to relax and to pursue increased leisure and recreational activities. Robinson and Godbey further report that leisure activities now increasingly preferred have the characteristics of time deepening, a tendency to compress more activities into the time available; they fi nd time deepening involves an accelerated rate of doing and of achieving. This, they aver, primarily focuses on those activities able to be performed quickly and likely to be accomplished more than once; activities that take longer amounts of time or that are not amenable to an immediate sense of achievement are now said to be less favoured As a consequence, these increasingly popular choices are said more likely to be accompanied by feelings of fragmentation in people’s lives, and a greater awareness of time pressure and even of time dominance. There would thus appear to be a powerful association between the manner in which individuals understand and negotiate time perceptions and expressions of well-being.
