Perceived Loneliness in Subjective Time Perception during the COVID-19 Pandemic: the Mediating Role of Negative Affective States

Several studies highlighted how social isolation due to pandemic restrictions influenced subjective experience of solitude, negative affective states, and the subjective time awareness. The main aim of the present study was to investigate, for the first time, the interplay among social isolation due to quarantine, psychological distress, perceived loneliness, and the subjective perception of the passage of time during Covid-19 pandemic. A total of 810 participants, aged 18–60, were administered a set of socio-demographic questions, the University of California, Los Angeles, Loneliness Scale-Version 3 (for perceived loneliness), the Depression Anxiety Stress Scales (for general psychological distress), and the Subjective Time Questionnaire (for the subjective passage of time). Results revealed higher levels of psychological distress in participants in quarantine. Female gender, and both perceived loneliness and stress were significant positive predictors of time pressure. Furthermore, lower education level, younger age, quarantine, higher levels of loneliness, depression and anxiety, and lower levels of stress were significant predictors of time expansion. Lastly, the mediation analysis showed that he subjective experience of solitude indirectly affected time pressure through stress, and time expansion through depression, anxiety, and stress. Taken together these results demonstrated that the subjective experience of loneliness, but not social isolation per se, had an impact on individual experience of time, also acting indirectly through negative affective states. This study reveals how psychological variables impact on subjective experience of time during specific trauma, but it also suggests how the changes of social environment impact on psychological distress and time perception.