Researchers at the Hendricks Institute for Behavioral Physics announced Tuesday that chronic procrastination, long dismissed as a mere personality flaw, is in fact a rudimentary and highly inefficient form of time travel that consistently sends people backward instead of forward.
The seven-year study, which the lead researchers admit was submitted four months after its original deadline, found that when a person delays a task, their brain briefly opens what scientists call a ‘guilt wormhole’ that transports them approximately 45 minutes into the past, where they immediately begin scrolling through the same three social media apps they had already scrolled through in the future they just left.
‘We initially thought we were studying laziness,’ said Dr. Miriam Castellano, the project’s head researcher. ‘But the data clearly shows these subjects are physically looping through short bursts of temporal displacement. Unfortunately, the technology only works in reverse, so instead of finishing their taxes early, they just relive the anxiety of not starting them, over and over, for six hours.’
The team is now seeking funding to determine whether the phenomenon can be reversed, though the grant proposal is currently 60% finished and has been for the last three weeks. Critics of the study argue that calling procrastination ‘time travel’ merely gives people a scientific-sounding excuse, to which Dr. Castellano responded, ‘I’ll address that criticism tomorrow.’
The Institute plans to publish its full findings in an upcoming journal issue, tentatively scheduled for a release date that has already been pushed back twice.
