How to Launch a Teen: Loss of Free Time

As you continue to gather information about how you spend your time, I thought we could talk about humanity's relationship with time.  Theoretical physicist Sean Carroll sees time as an irreversible process. You can't put things back. The future cannot be remembered, and the past cannot be changed. Much like breaking an egg, raising a child. The arrow of time--that is what he calls our perception of time--has no basis in the underlying laws of physics. The future is not real until we create it. We humans are the time machines.

Time is so important to humans that, as a global society that can't seem to agree on much, we have included time in the International System of Units as one of only seven fundamental physical quantities. 

While the international base unit for length is the metre, the base unit for time is the second.  We like to break time up into little bitty pieces. 

Being able to measure time, whatever it is, has been an evolutionary advantage for humans and has made possible all of our agricultural endeavors. In the 21st century we continue to use time as a framework for our future plans, and we trade large sums of it (along with our knowledge, skill, and effort) for money.   

Yet our personal relationship with time can lead to unhelpful or negative experiences.  The use of time management, in combination with goal-setting, planning, prioritization, and self-regulatory skills, can reduce time-related distress and negative thinking. 

As you launch into life-after-high school, you are going to experience significant changes in how your available time is spent.  I flick through browser tabs selected from a Google of time use, passing through the International Association for Time Use Research at St. Mary's University, a business consulting firm selling stats from the American Time Use Survey.  (I wonder if the US Department of Labor knows about that?)  I discover the work of Dagfin Aas at Oxford University's Centre for Time Use Research,

Dagfin Aas (what an awesome name) proposes four categories of time use:  necessary time (eating, sleeping, bathing, exercising), contracted time (working, schooling), committed time (the productive chores of daily life like cooking, cleaning, and childcare), and free time.

In any phase of our lives, most of our time is spent in necessary functions.  For most children and teenagers, free time makes up the second largest use of time.  It makes sense to me that as young adults assume roles such as parent, employee, or university student, increases in contracted and committed time and the resulting loss of free time could create points of conflict in relationships and be a major source of stress during the launch.   So we'll watch out for that.

Love,
Mom