Do you always feel short of time? Is 24x7 beginning to feel like 25x8? Who would not want an extra hour a day to deal with all those emails, voice mails and text messages from colleagues?

The answer may be at hand.

It may seem far-fetched, if not incredible, but after studying effects of time on local populace, scientists in Polegate, East Sussex, England, believe they have invented a new device that could provide a solution by actually stopping passage of time for up to one hour a day.

This reporter tested device and is now absolutely convinced that something astonishing is happening near normally sleepy South coast of England.

BACKGROUND

Professor Heinz Siebenundfünfzig of "Polegate Institute for Population Studies (annexe)", near Eastbourne, takes up story.

‘There is a common perception that time always seems to pass more quickly when people are enjoying themselves, "having fun", as it were. Conversely belief is that time seems to pass more slowly when tedious, repetitive tasks must be performed, for example, at work.

We decided to investigate foundation of this belief and to discover if there is any scientific justification for it.

Our team of ten researchers spent six months without interruption observing people at their various places of work. The same team then spent six months ensconced in places of recreation, such as bars and night clubs.

A "double-blind" testing approach was used in bars and clubs to prevent conscious or unconscious skewing of results. We then asked our researchers to compile their reports.

RESULTS

The results were astonishing:

1) The physical and mental effects of ageing actually seemed to be diminished, if not eliminated, by subjects having even mildly enjoyable fun, comparable to watching a favourite television program with a box of chocolates at hand and one’s feet kept warm by resting them on a dog’s back.

2) By contrast brainless, drop-jawed tedium immeasurably increased effects of time on our minds and bodies, comparable to subject watching television shopping channels or any daytime television.

3) These effects were compared to a median level of just feeling "normal", such as subject watching television news involving neither chocolates nor dogs.

The passage of time on a daily basis is therefore demonstrably "stretched". We measured this phenomenon with great scientific precision in extended tests and found a further strange effect.

EMAILS, TEXTS, VOICE MAILS

By asking people to deal with email and other messages from colleagues in a controlled environment called "FunZone", we could actually stop time completely by precisely one hour per day.

Quite why this should happen specifically when dealing with such messages we are still not sure, though several subjects did admit that ploughing through emails from colleagues about something in which they had not slightest interest had always made them feel like giving up will to live, thereby making time seem to pass more slowly anyway.

Possibly "FunZone" merely accentuated effects.

However, our next challenge was to prove even greater.

REAL-WORLD APPLICATION

How could findings be of practical use to general populace, since controlled environments are notoriously difficult to duplicate outside laboratory? This lead us to further research and collaboration with some of many time-space continuum engineering companies in area to develop these findings and to exploit them commercially, if possible.

The brief: to develop a device that could duplicate useful effects of "time-stretching". The aim was to make these devices easily available in public places, at work or at home. People could therefore pay to enter them and get business benefits of saving an hour per day by dealing with their tedious messages without wasting time.

Stress would be reduced and productivity improved. Thus "P-box" was created.’

THE DEVICE ITSELF