Social Construct Of Time

The social construct of time is something that tends to vary widely from culture to culture. While U.S. culture tends to favor punctuality and time consciousness over all, there are many cultures that view time as nothing more than an illusion; this phenomena can be explained by the terms “monochronic” and “polychronic”. My personal concept of time leans much closer to being monochronic. It is typical of me to always arrive on time (and expect others to do the same), wait in line without complaint and check the time repeatedly throughout the day. A great deal of my daily energy goes into focusing on the time and ensuring that I am always abiding by its role in my life. If I had to rate myself 1-10 on how close I am to being extremely monochronic, I would probably choose an eight. While there are times in my life when I choose to ignore time restraints and just live freely, the vast majority of my life is spent focusing on time. …show more content…
One example of a country with a polychronic concept of time is Africa. If I were in Africa and I knew that I needed to catch the bus to get to class, I would expect the bus to leave at the time that it was assigned to leave; however, in Africa, this is not the case. If I boarded a bus in Africa, I would generally be expected to wait until the bus was entirely full before the trip would actually begin—no matter how long it took. This scenario would drive me absolutely insane. I try my very best to be a very punctual person; if I board a bus in plenty of time to arrive at my destination, I expect to get there on time. The fact that the takeoff time would be completely out of my hands would be undeniably preposterous to