海角大神

Jessica Mendoza: Welcome to 鈥淩ethinking the News鈥� by 海角大神. I鈥檓 Jessica Mendoza, one of the producers. Today, we鈥檙e sharing Episode 4 of our science series, 鈥淚t鈥檚 About Time,鈥� hosted by Rebecca Asoulin and Eoin O鈥機arroll. And don鈥檛 forget to check out our previous episodes if you haven鈥檛 listened to them! Let鈥檚 get started.聽

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Eoin O鈥機arroll: It was Week One of the pandemic lockdown, and Madeline鈥檚 mom was worried. Madeline, who鈥檚 now 10, was getting too obsessed with clocks, and maybe even with time itself. So Madeline鈥檚 mom removed the clocks from all of their bedrooms in their New Hampshire cabin.聽

Rebecca: The end of in-person school felt like the perfect moment for this grand experiment.聽

Rebecca: Madeline loved setting her own bedtime. But not being able to check the clock if she woke up at night scared her.聽聽

Rebecca: Madeline is not alone. It turns out we鈥檙e all glued to the clock in one way or another.

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Eoin: This is 鈥淚t鈥檚 About Time.鈥� A series all about...

Rebecca: Time. I鈥檓 Rebecca Asoulin.聽

Eoin: And I鈥檓 Eoin O鈥機arroll.聽

Rebecca: In this science series, we interview experts on time. They鈥檒l help us unravel its mysteries.

Eoin: Because understanding time more deeply can help us make the most of the time we have.聽

Rebecca: We鈥檒l return to Madeline later on in this episode to tell you more about how the no-clock experiment went. But, Madeline isn鈥檛 the only one obsessed with clocks. Western culture is ruled by the clock. We usually take clock time for granted, but there are other rhythms we can live our lives by.聽

Eoin: This episode is about how the clock became king in the West, for better and for worse 鈥� and what that鈥檚 done for us. The thing with clocks is they can be both liberating and tyrannical.

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Rebecca: This is Alexis McCrossen. She鈥檚 the author of a book about the history of timekeeping in America called 鈥�.鈥�

Eoin: Clock time isn鈥檛 the only kind of time, of course. Our bodies have internal clocks. And our planet 鈥� as it spins on its axis and circles the sun 鈥� tells another kind of time.聽

Rebecca: But clock time has become increasingly dominant. Part of it has to do with the usefulness of the clock as both a tool of coordination and a tool of control.聽

Eoin: Humans have been building timepieces for a really long time. The first known sundial dates back to the ancient Egyptians. They were the ones who first divided the day into two 12-hour periods.

Rebecca: Some people even had portable sundials like watches! A more than 2,000-year-old portable sundial in the shape of an Italian ham .

Eoin: Other ancient clocks include water clocks that use a floating bowl with a hole in the bottom, and candle clocks, which burn down at a constant rate.

Rebecca: In the 12th century, the earliest mechanical clocks were invented.聽

Eoin: By the middle of the 18th century, large clock towers were the center of cities in Western Europe, Spanish North and South America, and British North America.

Rebecca: But the clocks themselves tell only half the story. In order to have a society run on time, you also need standardization. At one point in the 19th century, . But Dr. McCrossen says that things weren鈥檛 quite as chaotic as you might imagine.

Eoin: The industrial revolution in the 19th century accelerated our clock dependence, thus ending that era of chill.聽

Eoin: This is Dawna Ballard, an associate professor at the University of Texas at Austin.

Rebecca: According to Dr. Ballard, the new factories of the 19th century focused on productivity. They needed their workers to arrive at a certain time. And they needed their workers to treat time as money. In fact, farmers were told explicitly to keep non-work life outside of the factory.聽

Rebecca: Modern workplaces have shifted away from that kind of thinking a little bit. Although if you think about your work, it鈥檚 also astounding how similar this all might sound. But we still take the dominance of the clock for granted. It only becomes obvious to us when something goes wrong.聽

Rebecca: In this view, clock time is a tyrant 鈥撀�

Eoin: That鈥檚 Dr. McCrossen again, the timekeeping historian.聽

Rebecca: But clock time also underlies how our culture works. It helps us organize, coordinate, and be efficient. Here鈥檚 Dawna Ballard again.聽

Eoin: At the end of the 19th century, as the industrial revolution was winding down, people became more and more connected to those farther and farther away, and flocked to bigger and bigger cities.聽

Rebecca: They needed an agreed-upon standard of time to be able to coordinate with each other. So at the end of the 19th century, the U.S. and England both began to adopt a standardized system of time. It took a few more decades for the entire world to do the same. This is when we get time zones.聽

Eoin: In this view, clocks liberated society.

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Rebecca: There鈥檚 also a kind of magic to clocks. In Dr. McCrossen鈥檚 book on the history of timekeepers in the U.S., she writes about a Wisconsin man who in 1887 donated a tower clock to his local church 鈥渋n the name of his departed wife鈥�... who went unnamed. The minister鈥檚 sermon during the dedication services outlined a set of lessons clocks could teach.

Eoin: So I鈥檓 kind of obsessed with mechanical wristwatches. I like ones that were produced in the Soviet Union. You can get them pretty cheaply, and they tend to break all the time. My first one was a diving watch from the 1980s called a Vostok Amphibia. And shortly after I got it, it started making this rattling noise.

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And so I opened it up to see if I could fix it. And I saw inside a wristwatch for the first time, and I absolutely fell in love with it. It was like opening an entirely new world for me. Just the idea that you can take some gears and a spring and be able to use that to tell the time, that strikes me as really amazing.聽聽

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Noelle Swan: Hi everyone. I鈥檓 Noelle Swan, an editor for 鈥淚t鈥檚 About Time.鈥� Like a lot of people, I have always had a somewhat adversarial relationship with time. It seems like I鈥檓 always in some kind of race against it. But this podcast has helped me to think outside the clock. We鈥檙e able to produce this series thanks to your financial support. If you鈥檇 like to listen to more podcasts from us, consider subscribing to the Monitor at csmonitor.com/subscribe.

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搁别产别肠肠补:听It鈥檚 possible to become too obsessed with time. That鈥檚 exactly what鈥檚 been happening with Madeline. She鈥檚 the girl whose mom took away her clock.聽聽

Rebecca: That鈥檚 Stephanie Hanes, Madeline鈥檚 mother. She鈥檚 a reporter, and a regular contributor to the Monitor.聽

Rebecca: For Madeline, waking up at midnight and seeing the clock鈥β�

Rebecca: If Madeline sees it鈥檚 close to morning, she feels better and can fall asleep much more easily. Knowing it鈥檚 midnight is scary because that means if she can鈥檛 go back to sleep then she might lose hours and hours of sleep. when that happens 鈥撀�

Rebecca: This isn鈥檛 an uncommon problem. When Dr. McCrossen鈥檚 daughter was around Madeline鈥檚 age, she actually also had to take her daughter鈥檚 clock out of her room 鈥撀�

Eoin: Dr. McCrossen鈥檚 daughter is now a teenager. She eventually stopped worrying about the clock. For her mom, this anxiety was relatable. She didn鈥檛 worry about the clock at night, but she experienced something similar when she was younger.聽

Rebecca: You can become so glued to the clock that you can鈥檛 have meaningful time because you鈥檙e so focused on measuring it.聽

Eoin: That tension comes from being caught in between two worlds that don鈥檛 mix well, according to the time and communication expert Dr. Ballard. Some cultures are monochronic and other cultures are polychronic. It鈥檚 not so much a binary as it is a spectrum.

Rebecca: According to Dr. Ballard, the U.S. is primarily a monochronic culture. Monochronic cultures value doing things in order, one at a time. Like workers in a factory assembly line. But 鈥�

Rebecca: And when monochronic culture merges with polychronic behavior 鈥撀�

Eoin: In monochronic cultures, we often experience a disconnect between these two ways of thinking. It can really stress us out sometimes.聽

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Rebecca: Our relationship to time and clocks is changeable.聽

Eoin: Of course, you鈥檒l also find people 鈥� and sometimes even businesses 鈥� that operate outside clock time. For example, there鈥檚 this local grocery store that Dr. Ballard used to buy eggs from 鈥�

Rebecca: The first time Dr. Ballard cracked open one of the eggs 鈥�

Eoin: Her family loved the eggs, and they bought them all the time. But one day, the store ran out.

Eoin: The grocery store went out of business 鈥� perhaps a sign that modern life isn鈥檛 hospitable for this kind of natural temporality. Or to chickens generally.

Rebecca: But in many ways, clock time seems to be losing some of its power.聽

Eoin: Especially during the pandemic, when every day feels like a Wednesday.聽

Rebecca: Why Wednesday?

Eoin: Well, I don鈥檛 like Wednesdays.

Rebecca: Dr. McCrossen agrees the pandemic made clock time less important. For example, if we were going to a concert pre-pandemic 鈥�

Rebecca: Dr. Ballard says that that flexibility can lead to more compassion.

Eoin: To Dr. Ballard, ascribing less power to the clock can enhance our social connections. To Dr. McCrossen, clocks make it easier to connect with people, especially those who are physically distant.聽

Rebecca: For example, Dr. McCrossen knows her mother鈥檚 routines on the clock 鈥撀�

Rebecca: These days, clocks are integrated into almost every aspect of our lives. Take a moment and think about all the clocks you have in your house.聽

Did you think about your phone and computer? What about your oven? Or your microwave?

Eoin: Or your car, your TV, your printer, your modem...basically any electronic device that connects to the internet has a clock embedded.聽聽

Rebecca: For Madeline 鈥� the 10-year-old with the love of clocks 鈥� her clock is back in her bedroom for now. The result of her family moving to a new house.

Rebecca: Madeline and her sister Lydia unpacked their room themselves, and Madeline put the clock back in the bedroom.聽

Eoin: They arrived at a compromise. The clock鈥檚 backlight stays off, and its face is turned toward Madeline鈥檚 bed, because her sister prefers to live life clock free.聽

Rebecca: Madeline hasn鈥檛 totally broken the habit of wanting to check the clock at night. But with its light off, she can鈥檛 check it as easily. Experimenting with life without it, has left her a little bit more relaxed during the day. She listens to her body to know when to go to bed, when to wake up, when to eat meals.聽

Eoin: It鈥檚 really tempting, but we probably can鈥檛 just throw out all our clocks. Clocks can connect us to others and help us accomplish stuff.

Madeline: You could never do it on a school day or something because you wouldn鈥檛 know when you were waking up and you would never know when you were falling asleep.

Rebecca: But we need unstructured time. And to do that, we need to reflect on our lives and figure out where and when we can make those changes. We can鈥檛 be so obsessed with measuring time that we don鈥檛 experience it.

Eoin: For Madeline鈥檚 mother, Stephanie, the lockdown and the clock experiment changed her relationship with time. Stephanie writes for the Monitor. And she wrote an essay about time during the pandemic. She writes in the essay:聽

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Rebecca: Thanks for listening! We hope this episode got you thinking about when to rely on clocks 鈥� and when to ditch 鈥榚m.聽

Eoin: If you liked this episode, please subscribe to 鈥淩ethinking the News鈥� wherever you get your podcasts, and leave us a rating or comment. And share this series with your friends, family, and coworkers! We鈥檙e at csmonitor.com/time.聽

Rebecca: This series is hosted and produced by me, Rebecca Asoulin. My co-host is Eoin O鈥機arroll. Produced with Jessica Mendoza and Samantha Laine Perfas. Additional editing by Noelle Swan and Clay Collins. Additional production support from Ibrahim Onafeko. Sound design by Noel Flatt, and Morgan Anderson.聽

This story was produced by 海角大神, copyright 2021.

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