Have you ever opened your phone just for five minutes and somehow an hour disappears ?
You scroll, reply, swipe – and suddenly, it’s dark outside.
It feels like time just slipped away.
How Technology Plays with Time
Modern apps and devices are built to hold attention. Every sound, swipe and color is designed to keep you engaged as much as possible.
In studies across six European countries, psychologists found that digital technology doesn’t just take our attention, it reshapes how we feel time passing.
When we dive into screens, especially if the content feels fun or rewarding, time seems to move faster. The more immersive and enjoyable our online experience is, the quicker our internal clock runs.
But all this comes with a cost,
Many people feel that the hours they spent online are less valuable or meaningless. Activities that are supposed to make life easier like filling out online forms or chatting with customer support often end up taking very much longer than expected. They can become repetitive, confusing and stressful, instead of saving our time.
On top of that, the internet constantly floods us with endless feeds, notifications and updates. This constant flow of information can be overwhelming and exhausting. With these too many choices and distractions, it becomes very difficult to focus and make decisions. As a result, people often feel mentally tired, frustrated and the feeling that time is slipping away too fast.
Why Time Feels Faster Online?
Our brains are built to measure time through change and attention. When something fully captures our attention, we lose awareness of the passing time.
That’s exactly what digital platforms do, they are designed for constant engagement.
Researchers found four repeating patterns in people’s experience with technology:
- Time is Lost : Many people feel hours disappear without meaning. A “few minutes” of scrolling reels or switching between apps turns into entire day feel wasted.
- Every Moment is Filled : We fill our every quite seconds with screens like while waiting, commuting or resting. There is no pause anymore.
- Time is Forgotten : Algorithms feed us with endless content which keeps our attention locked, so we lose tracks of time completely.
- Time Feels Out of Control: After long hours online, we feel guilty promise ourselves to take break or use time in a productive way but still the pattern starts all over again – “A Modern Loop of Distraction and Regret”.
Part of this happens because digital systems are designed to never stop – endless scrolls, autoplay videos and constant notifications pulls us deeper without us even noticing.
And our own habits make it worse. We reach for our phones out of reflex, multitask between tabs and fill every quiet seconds with noise just to avoid stillness.
Together these factors make our sense of time online fast, full and passing quickly like the sand slipping through our fingers.
What Can You Do To Take Back Control?
Escaping the “time trap” doesn’t mean deleting all your apps. It’s about owing your attention and bringing back quiet moments.
Here are a few practical tips that really work:
1. Simplify your digital world
- Turn off non-essential notifications.
- Keep only a few apps on your home screen (hide or uninstall the rest).
- Set time limits for social media (20-30 minutes a day)
2. Redesign your routines
- Leave the first and last 30 minutes of your day phone-free.
- Try only one screen at a time, no scrolling while watching TV or studying
- Schedule screen-free mini breaks between work tasks.
3. Choose quality over quantity
- Go for long form content like podcasts, audiobooks or thoughtful articles instead of endless clips.
- Before opening an app, ask yourself “What do I want here?” not “What’s new?”.
4. Keep real pauses
- Let yourself be bored sometimes. That’s when your brain resets and creativity returns.
- Take short walks, stretch or simply sit without checking your phone.
A Better Relationship With Time
One truth is, technology is not the enemy. It’s the way we use it, or how it uses us, that changes how time feels.
Change your mindset from “screen time is bad” to “How can I make my time online more meaningful?”
Not every moment on a screen is wasted. Talking to friends, learning new things or relaxing with a show are all good way to spend time.
Researches say that the guilt we often feel comes from thinking that digital time doesn’t have value but if we pay attention to how we spend it and use it with purpose it can be just as meaningful as time spent offline.
So maybe the goal isn’t to escape the digital world but to find balance knowing when to be online and when to take a break.
“When you respect your time, both online and offline, you stop feeling like it’s slipping away.”
Conclusion
Time doesn’t really disappear, we just lose track of it when we let technology take over our attention. The key is not to avoid screens but to use them with purpose. When you slow down, stay mindful and choose how you spend your time, you will feel more in control of your day.
In the end, technology should work for you, now the other way around.
Reference
Wittmann, M., Černohorská, V., Witowska, J., Papastamatelou, J., & The TIMED Project Team. (2025). The Vanishing Hours: Subjective Passage of Time in the Digital Era. Psychology Today (August 28, 2025).
Retrieved from Psychology Today – Vanishing Hours
Černohorská, V., Schoetensack, C., Klegr, T., Witowska, J., Goncikowska, K., Giner-Domínguez, G., Papastamatelou, J., Wittmann, M., & Ogden, R. (2025). How Digital Technology Can Steal Your Time. Computers in Human Behavior, 169, Article 108680.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2025.108680
Witowska, J., Ogden, R., Schoetensack, C., Goncikowska, K., Wittmann, M., Černohorská, V., & Papastamatelou, J. (2025). New Measurements of Digital Technology Use: The Immersion in Digital Life and Quality of Digital Experience Scales. Frontiers in Psychiatry, 16, 1595536.
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