People commonly think of time as a fixed, linear, objective structure. But our own experiences belie this belief. We’ve all been in situations where time has seemed to drag on or speed up, and there are even whole periods of our lives that seem to have gone by slower or faster.

As my guest Steve Taylor will explain, time is a lot more fluid and moldable than we often recognize. Steve is a psychologist and the author of Time Expansion Experiences: The Psychology of Time Perception and the Illusion of Linear Time. Today on the show, he unpacks the four laws of psychological time. He discusses the theories as to why time speeds up as we get older and what factors slow down and speed up time. We delve into the way time particularly expands in accidents and emergencies, giving people the ability to take life-saving measures. And we discuss why some people are more likely to have time expansion experiences than others, and what you can do to slow down time and make your life feel longer as a result.

• AoM Article: Be a Time Wizard — How to Slow Down and Speed Up Time
• AoM Article: More Footage — Take the One-Month “Do Something New Every Day” Challenge

• Steve’s website

Pornography is more prevalent and accessible than ever before, yet its effects on relationships, mental health, and human development aren't popularly well understood. Discussions on the topic are often engaged in from an emotional or religious point of view; less typical is a discussion of pornography from an empirical frame.

My guest today, Dr. Brian Willoughby, a social scientist who has spent the past 15 years studying porn's impacts, will unpack what the research actually says about how it affects personal well-being, relationship satisfaction, and sexual expectations. We discuss the latest data on porn use across different demographics, how porn impacts religious versus non-religious populations differently, and how exposure affects kids. Brian shares whether using porn causes erectile dysfunction and depression, what parents should know about talking to their kids about porn, the main risk of porn that's typically under-discussed, and more.

• AoM's series on porn and how to quit it (also available as an ebook)
• NYT article that Brian was interviewed for: "It’s Time to Talk About Pornography, Scholars Say"
• Most People With Addiction Simply Grow Out of It
• NYT article: "The Teen Trend of Sexual Choking"
• Brian's research

• Brian's faculty page
• Brian at the Wheatley Institute

The idea for the Art of Manliness came to me 17 years ago as I was standing in the magazine section of a Borders bookstore. As inspiration struck, I took my Moleskine out of my pocket and jotted down some notes, like potential names — I considered things like “The Manly Arts” before settling on “The Art of Manliness” — categories of content, and initial article ideas. Almost two decades later, the fruits of those notebook jottings are still bearing out.

That’s the power of a pocket pad’s possibilities, something Roland Allen explores in The Notebook: A History of Thinking on Paper. Today on the show, Roland traces the fascinating history of notebooks and how they went from a business technology for accounting to a creative technology for artists. We talk about how famous figures from Leonardo da Vinci to Theodore Roosevelt used notebooks, the different forms notebooks have taken from the Italian zibaldone to the friendship book to the modern bullet journal, and why keeping a personal diary has fallen out of favor. Along the way, we discuss ways you can fruitfully use notebooks today, and why, even in our digital age, they remain an irreplaceable tool for thinking and creativity.

• AoM Article: 100 Ways to Use Your Pocket Notebook
• AoM Article: The Manly Tradition of the Pocket Notebook
• AoM Article: The Pocket Notebooks of 20 Famous Men
• AoM Podcast #194: The Field Notes of Theodore Roosevelt
• AoM Article: The Right and Wrong Way to Journal
• AoM Article: Finally Understand How to Keep a Bullet Journal
• Leonardo da Vinci’s notebooks
• Charles Darwin’s notebooks
• John Locke’s Method for Commonplace Books

• Roland’s website