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Abstract
Individuals with a balanced time perspective, which includes good thoughts about the past, awareness of present constraints and adaptive planning for a positive future, are more likely to report optimal wellbeing. However, people who have had traumas such as adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) are likely to have less balanced time perspectives and lower overall wellbeing when compared to those with fewer or no ACEs. Time perspective can be improved via time-travel narratives that support people in feeling connected to a wise and loving future version of themselves, an approach that has until now only been provided in counseling contexts. Our team used an iterative inclusive design process to shape a scalable time-travel narrative tool – a responsive and progressive web application called Time Machine. Among other functionalities, Time Machine allowed people to record and listen to messages as if they were from and to their past and future selves. Using pre-planned as well as post-hoc analyses, we analyzed quantitative and qualitative data from 96 paid design partners (participants) who were taken through a 26-day pilot study of the technology. Among other effects, the results revealed: (1) high engagement throughout the design process, (2) improvements in self-reported time perspective and overall wellbeing scores that were greater for those using Time Machine during an optional-use period, (3) twice as much improvement in overall wellbeing scores for design partners with high ACEs (16%) versus low ACEs (8%), and (4) feelings of unconditional love apparently mediating the relationship between scores on time perspective and overall wellbeing measures. We discuss the limitations of these results as well as implications for the future role of spiritually informed scalable time-travel narrative technologies in healthcare and wellness.
Highlights
The ideal time perspective has been a topic of popular discussion for centuries
Since the survey could be completed with concise answers in less than 4 min and payment did not depend on survey answers, this indicated to us that on average, our design partners were invested in communicating their actual experiences
The 96 paid design partners who completed this 26-day pilot study were largely positive about the technology and the study, as evidenced by 90% participation in the unpaid optional period of the study, the detailed and mostly positive feedback received on the final survey, and the fact that 96% of our design partners said that they would like to use an improved version of this technology again
Summary
The ideal time perspective has been a topic of popular discussion for centuries. For instance, two forms of time were personified by the Greeks: Kronos vs. Kairos; these are similar in meaning to two Hindu words for time, Kala vs. Ritu (e.g., Makridakis, 2012; Lindley et al, 2013; Valentine, 2020). In recent academic philosophy, an argument has emerged in which some philosophers state that a fully rational human would have no temporal bias; for instance, a rational human would have no preference to have the bad things in life behind us and the good things ahead of us, because we are always the same person having the experience (Sullivan, 2018) Another philosophical camp states that it is both reasonable and common to have temporal biases such as these, or in any case that such temporal biases can be rationalized (Greene et al, 2021). Those with more positive and less negative thoughts about the past, nonfatalistic thoughts about the present, and a greater frequency of future-engaged thoughts are more likely to rank themselves as optimally functioning, having greater wellbeing, experiencing less negative affect and more life satisfaction than those who do not share this balanced time perspective (for review, see Jankowski et al, 2020)
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