There are people out there that just can’t go to the gym, go for a run, or exercise at all without their playlist. Whether it’s just playing their favorite songs on Spotify to get through the next set of bench presses or watching a TV show on their iPad while on the treadmill, many people believe that having such distractions just makes it all go faster than if they exercised without it. You might be one of those people, and, according to science, you’re actually right. Sort of.
A study is showing the people who do intense workouts without headphones or other distractions actually experience time much slower during their exercise than people who incorporate entertainment or competition in with their workout session. For the research, 33 physically active people went on three different cycling trials on an exercise bike. The first trial was a solo biking session without distractions, the second trial was with a virtual avatar on the bike’s screen, and the third session was a game in which they needed to race a virtual opponent. Before, during, and after each trial, they were asked to estimate a 30 second time period.
As someone who was once overweight, I want to help others on their fitness journey. The key? Do an exercise you enjoy that burns around 500 calories/hr. If you hate it, you won’t stick with it! Combine what you love, like music or audiobooks, with your workout?? #FitnessTipspic.twitter.com/jtLnHdNprE— Derek ₿anas (@NewThinkTank) October 21, 2024
The results showed across all three trials that the participants didn’t showcase any differences in perception of time before and after the exercise, but showed disparity during the cycling workouts. All three trials had the participants experience slowness in their perceptions of time and didn’t show much of a difference regarding whether there was a virtual element or not. The warped perception was credited not to cycling itself, but to how focused the individuals were on the task at hand along with the discomfort that comes with strenuous training.
“Exercise, particularly hard exercise, increases focus on the body, creating a heightened awareness of each moment,” said Andrew Edwards, first author of the study and a professor of psychology at Canterbury Christ Church University. “That makes time feel like it’s dragging.”
You know the old phrase “time flies when you’re having fun”? It’s like that but in reverse. Since the body is experiencing discomfort, even pain in some cases, it’s perceiving each moment much longer than in reality. If the activity isn’t fun, it’s…well, it’s not fun. So it feels slow.
Edwards even followed this study up with an additional one studying professional soccer players and their training habits. Unsurprisingly, the results found that the players enjoyed the workouts that involved them playing soccer and drills with their teammates, finding those activities much shorter and quicker than watching game film for analysis or cardio training.
“If time feels slower, workouts may feel longer and less enjoyable. Making exercise more engaging could help people stick with it,” Edwards said to The Guardian. “Repetitive or unenjoyable exercise might enhance this time-slowing effect, while distractions or enjoyment might reduce it.”
So, what can you do when your workout just drags and drags? Well, as mentioned above, music through some headphones or watching a show on a tablet can help make cardio workouts on the treadmill or elliptical go by much faster and easier. If you’re lifting weights, music can help, but doing it with a friend will not only give you a spot for heavier lifts, but make it a more fun experience. Just make sure you’re still aware of your surroundings and don’t get too distracted if you’re running on the streets outside or are in a crowded gym.
Working out with friends also makes exercise more enjoyable (and feel quicker). Photo credit: Canva
When it comes to chores like sweeping and washing dishes, listening to music or podcasts can help pass the time. Folding laundry and other menial tasks like that can be done while the TV plays in the background, too. If you’re doing an elaborate project, invite your friends over for a “chore hang” to keep you company while you commit to your task or errand.
Just know that exercise and many other parts of life can feel like a boring eternity, but there are plenty of opportunities and people out there to help make the time fly by.
According to the Guinness Book of World Records, the oldest person lived to the ripe age of 122 years old. Such a lifespan is an incredible feat, but what if the average person could beat that record by 34 years? Recent research done in Russia has led scientists to believe that the average human lifespan could be up to 156 years.
The researchers at Skoltech Biomed Technologies Center developed a mathematical model that allowed them to “switch on” a variety of aging mechanisms. This allowed them to calculate a human’s lifespan where mortality risk never increased with age. After experimenting with different scenarios and conditions, they found the biggest barriers to longevity were caused by non-renewable tissues and somatic mutations.
What are these barriers against longer life?
Somatic mutations are DNA changes within a cell. They accumulate over time during a human’s life and cannot be reversed with any existing therapy. These DNA errors that pile up in our cells contribute to the aging process.
Many human organs like the liver and skin continually replace cells and regrow damaged portions of themselves. However, there are two organs that can’t do this: the brain and the heart. Brain tissue (neurons) and heart tissue (cardiomyocytes) cannot regenerate. This proves to be the most prominent biological limit that shortens our lifespans. This explains why issues like dementia and heart disease are prominent causes of death and morbidity later in life. Since those organs’ tissues don’t replace damaged cells, they’re prone to irrevocably decline over time.
“The key finding of the study is the discovery of substantial differences between tissue types. Neurons and cardiomyocytes, which lack the ability to divide, turned out to be the main limiting factors: when all other causes of aging are eliminated, somatic mutations alone reduce the theoretical median lifespan from 1,759 years (for a hypothetical non-aging human organism) to 156 years,” said Evgeny Efimov, a research intern at the Skoltech Biomed Technologies Center, researcher at AIRI, and one of the key authors of the study.
This suggests that somatic mutations and DNA damage is what ultimately prevents humans from living indefinitely, even if our brains and hearts regenerated cells like other organs.
So what’s next?
Now knowing these biological limitations, the researchers hope to study other areas of aging impacting the human lifespan that could plausibly be reversed. This includes mitochondrial dysfunction, telomere shortening, epigenetic drift, and loss of proteostasis.
The hope is to have a clearer priority list of issues for future therapies to tackle. This is not just to possibly extend life, but to improve lives in general. By developing a fully comprehensive theory of aging, Skoltech hopes to pinpoint which aspects of aging are within our scope to address. After all, thoroughly studying each puzzle piece that makes up human life gives us a better understanding of the whole.
Of course, other impactful factors in a person’s lifespan can be addressed today. As most know, things like diet, sleep, and exercise are among them. A person’s living environment can also negatively impact their lifespan if it doesn’t have clean air, access to clean water, and so on.
For now, the best method for living long is to follow instructions from your physician. Whether you make it to 156 years or not, living well is best for whatever time you’re given.
In the U.S., as of mid-2026, more than 30 states have passed laws banning or restricting cellphones in K–12 classrooms; in 2023, the U.S. surgeon general issued a formal advisory on social media and children’s and adolescents’ mental health; and bestselling books tell parents that smartphones are “rewiring” their children’s brains.
These concerns and policies are part of a quickly changing national and international conversation around how young people spend time on screens and its relationship to their overall health and development. My reading of the mounting research on this issue across disciplines is that the popular narrative blaming screens and smartphones for an adolescent mental health crisis runs well ahead of the current evidence.
I study adolescent digital media use and its influence on social, emotional and academic outcomes. A growing body of research suggests that one-size-fits-all solutions are not the answer and that managing appropriate use of digital media needs to take into account a child’s developmental milestones, how parents and adults around them use media, and the ways kids use it to connect and learn with friends and family.
Screen time: From monolith to multifaceted
Wide adoption of digital media and the internet broadened the range of experiences young people could have online. At the same time, the digital age introduced newfound uncertainties. As with the advent of radio, comic books and arcades, adults worried about how children might interact with or be affected by internet use.
Policies introduced by the academy in 2013 and 2016 continued to advise that school-age kids and adolescents – those ages 5 to 18 – be restricted to no more than two hours of “entertainment” screen time a day. The goal was to curb risks associated with heavy media use, among them disrupted sleep, online safety, cyberbullying and physical inactivity.
Originally created for young people’s engagement with stationary media that tend to be confined to one room or context – for example, watching television – these hourly limits became outdated with the integration of smartphones and other digital devices into everyday life. Compared with watching television, online media was far more difficult to track and define, and more nuanced in its use.
In January 2026, the American Academy of Pediatrics retired its decade-old framework that had largely organized its advice around hourly screen limits. The new policy statement on children, adolescents and digital media diverges from this blanket approach. Instead, it suggests parents consider the larger picture in which this media use exists rather than lumping all screen use together.
Both the World Health Organization and the American Academy of Pediatrics also recommend that when children under 24 months use screens, they should be limited to content and devices that encourage children and caregivers to interact. For ages 2 to 5, screen time – including TV and interactive apps on devices – may be extended to more solo use, provided it’s high-quality digital media designed around learning goals in mathematics and reading. But recreational use should be limited to roughly an hour per day.
For school-age children and teens, the newest guidance has begun to step away from fixed screen time limits and asks families to weigh online activity in the context of everyday life.
Doing so recognizes that a child’s digital experiences are shaped by diverse factors rather than the hours spent online. Current guidelines call on caregivers to distinguish among types of media, from television and social media to video games and interacting with artificial intelligence chatbots. They also call for taking into account a child’s individual characteristics, such as their interests and personality, family members’ own use of screens, and the type of content children are spending time on.
Rethinking screen time
Moving beyond strict screen time limits includes questioning the kind of digital activities kids and adolescents participate in. Do the activities encourage time spent interacting with others online, which can help young people develop important skills and competencies?
Scrolling an algorithm-based, auto-playing video feed likely does not equate to the same opportunities as video-chatting with friends, creating digital art or working with teammates in a multiplayer game. Research suggests these different uses relate to development in different ways and can help kids develop varying skill sets pertaining to everyday life and schooling.
Indeed, a large review of current research found that young people who take part in a range of digital activities, such as browsing the web, online gaming or interacting on social media, show positive associations with social connection, identity exploration, civic participation and learning.
The current evidence suggests parents and caregivers are best positioned to be digital instructors. Cutting children off altogether can carry its own risks for social and emotional development. Caregiver mediation of children’s screen time can produce widely different outcomes and effects, depending on whether the guidance is supportive or controlling.
Considering your own digital media use is the first step: Are family members engaging in problematic or heavy media use that children in the household might emulate? What applications and uses are most common in the family, and what positive or negative effects might they have, depending on the child’s age? How could these digital activities be safely integrated with other everyday experiences to increase their benefit for children? Conversely, what online time might be better spent on face-to-face experiences?
The American Academy of Pediatrics’ Family Media Plan tool turns these ideas into concrete questions. For example, it recommends working out what each child needs from digital technology, what activities screens might be crowding out, and where their family or household can build in screen-free time. The recommendation is to talk with each child about why they are drawn to particular apps or online activities, what they encounter while browsing, and what might be lost when kids bring phones to gatherings such as mealtimes.
The debate over young people’s screen time is not going away. But the most up-to-date guidelines, and the growing body of research behind them, make a strong case for a more holistic approach. The guidelines treat digital media as a complex, diverse and evolving environment that children need to learn to navigate in the digital age. The risks and rewards depend, as with any developmental setting, on the child, the content and what online time might be crowding out.
An emergency room doctor and fellow mom has been noticing a troubling trend: Many parents are giving their kids something more powerful than bicycles to get around the neighborhood. As a result, she’s seeing more children come into the ER with injuries sustained in e-bike and e-scooter crashes. She recently went online with a plea to parents and young riders.
Dr. Meghan Elizabeth Beach Martin, known online as Dr. Beachgem, posted a video in her scrubs discussing her concerns after seeing so many children come into the hospital with e-bike injuries during the summer months. She’s worried that too many kids and parents don’t understand the proper safety precautions. As a mother herself, she even questions why children are allowed to ride these devices at all.
In the video, the doctor explains that some e-bikes can reach speeds of up to 28 mph. She says that if an e-bike goes any faster than that, it’s technically classified as a motorcycle. At those speeds, she regularly sees children with traumatic injuries and broken bones after hitting bumps, cracks in the road, or other vehicles. Many of them aren’t wearing helmets or protective pads, and some are even riding barefoot, making their injuries even more severe. Martin’s video has gained traction on Reddit and elsewhere online.
E-bikes and e-scooters, examined
Martin isn’t the only professional seeing a growing problem. The American College of Surgeons reports that there are more than 20,000 e-bike-related injuries each year. Meanwhile, a University of California, San Francisco study found that e-bike injuries doubled annually from 2017 to 2022. The same study found that e-scooter injuries increased by 45% each year during the same period.
Before riding an e-bike, it’s important to follow proper safety procedures. Make sure you and your child understand your area’s laws regarding e-bikes, including any minimum age requirements. Always wear a helmet and other protective gear when riding. Consider choosing an e-bike with safety features such as motor-interrupt brake levers and disc brakes. These are just a few of the many safety tips experts recommend.
The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission has similar safety tips for e-scooter riders. Wearing a helmet is one of its top recommendations, along with taking other basic precautions. The agency also recommends checking the brakes before riding and slowing down for bumps, cracks, and other road hazards.
The vast majority of e-scooters and e-bikes are designed for only one rider, so avoid doubling up. Although laws vary by state and locality, wearing more protective gear is always the safer choice. Riders should also review local e-bike and e-scooter laws to make sure they are operating the vehicles safely and legally.
A little research goes a long way toward making sure you and your children can ride safely. It’s also important for parents to understand that many e-bikes and e-scooters can travel at speeds that make them very different from a traditional bicycle. The last thing you want is for you or your child to become another emergency room statistic.
