How to make Waiting Less Painful

Have you noticed that waiting is not as painful if you know for how long you have to wait? Sitting in the waiting room at your doctor’s office for 20 minutes may seem like forever, but standing in line for an hour at Disney doesn’t seem so bad. I think a couple of factors come into play here:

a) Other than magazines and a muted TV, there is no other entertainment in the waiting room. Whereas at Disney there is often a variety of things to take in while you are waiting in line, such as pictures, videos, mechanical characters, and music to match the theme of the ride.

b) Another factor is that you have no idea how long you are going to be sitting in the waiting room, so every minute seems longer than a minute. At Disney, they often have signs telling you how long the wait is as you progress through the line; therefore, you have realistic expectations. The same is found when subways started showing the number of minutes until the next train arrives on their video boards on the platforms – it decreased frustration because even though the train will not be arriving any faster, at least you know how long you will have to wait. At the airport isn’t it better to know that your flight will be delayed by 45 minutes instead of just “delayed”? I have read that some countries have a countdown timer at red lights so drivers know when the light will change to green. This takes away the feeling of “this is the longest red light ever” or “will this light ever change?”. I have not seen this in the US, but I do sometimes watch the timer on the pedestrian crossing for the same purpose.

I do think it would be a bad idea to put a countdown timer on green lights as I think there would likely be an increase in drivers accelerating in an attempt to get through the intersection before the light changes to red and potentially cause more accidents – I guess sometimes knowing the amount of time remaining for an event is not always better.

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