Endless Summers Aren’t Just for Kids—Here’s How to Make This Summer Last Forever, According to Science
As I was writing this story, a storm rolled through my neighborhood, and memories flooded back of summer afternoons spent reading by the window as the thunder rumbled after I’d rushed home from the pool before the skies opened up. Summer as a kid encompassed so many memories , from family vacations and swimming at the beach to riding bikes until dusk, catching fireflies and staying up late to watch movies. It all seemed like endless fun until September. As an adult, summers seem to go by so fast that we barely have a chance to enjoy them before we’re back-to-school shopping. And it’s not our imagination: There are scientific reasons why summer really did seem longer when you were a kid. Now that we’re grown-ups, is it possible to recapture that sense of an “endless” summer before the leaves start falling? I asked time-perception expert Martin Wiener, PhD, an assistant professor of psychology at George Mason University and the principal investigator of...