Rural children’s experiences of time

Layla Coleman

Within the United States rural spaces are characterised through open countryside, undeveloped spaces, and agricultural economies; landscapes peppered with small towns and villages under 2,500 people (Ratcliffe et al, 2016; Tieken and San Antonio, 2016). Long regarded as spaces that embrace a slower pace of life, common conceptualizations of rural time or country time can be traced back to the Roman age, where rurality was considered only in contrast to the town (Oyen, 2019). While these temporal conceptualizations are flawed and limited, Oyen proposes that the conventional view of rural life is still “an image of the past” (p. 192) with continuing assumptions that “the countryside occupies a different temporal register than the city” (p. 194). While Oyen (2019) argues that rural agency is silenced by perceived notions of rural time as slow time, as a child, my experience in the rugged and unpopulated space echoes these generalizations, particularly during summer and my early childhood experiences, where time felt ever unhurried.

The scenery of my childhood was filled with aging family farms, steep bluffs and coulees, and tangled new-growth forests, a backdrop ripe for a slow and unhurried rural childhood. Known as the Driftless Area, this topographically unique chunk of the upper Mississippi River valley (bypassed by the last glacial drift, some 12,000 years ago) culturally and temporally embraces the slogan: Slower is Better. While I can neither validate nor refute the value of slowness, my recent reflections on interviews conducted with children (ages 9–15) exploring their digital engagements made me wonder: do the children living in this rural region today experience their childhoods as slow? Do digital media influence rural children’s current experiences of time?

The lived experiences of rural children are distinct and shaped by the specific cultural, geographical, and social knowledges that children hold. Through work discussing the aspirations of and possibilities for rural youth, Tieken and San Antonio (2016) observe that rural contexts shape how youth see themselves, how they perceive the world, and how they form dreams and aspirations about who they might be. Research has also shown that children hold insight and awareness concerning rurality, able to identify both popular and familial discourses concerning rural life and relay the activities and experiences that construct their definitions of “being rural” (McCormack, 2002).

The specific experiences and discourses of rural children’s lives become even more interesting when we turn toward research considering children’s perceptions of time. In a study on preschool children’s perspectives on time, Dýrfjörð et al. (2023) note that young children measure time through specific activities, events, or experiences where “the sense of the duration of time passing is dependent on context rather than hours on a clockface” (p. 14). If young children are more likely to measure time in relation to their engagements, we can in turn expect the practices and materials situated within rural contexts to shape rural children’s experiences of time. As Tilhou (2021) notes in discussion of Maria, a young participant in Punch’s (2002) ethnographic work exploring rural children’s perceived spatialities, “the passage of time is shaped by [Maria’s] routine which is shaped by [Maria’s] culture, as the culture is shaped by land and agriculture there” (p. 48).

Rural children’s lives are no longer lived only in the unpopulated spaces of rural landscapes, but also within the unique digital cultures and engagements that they are privy to (Burnett et al., 2014). During my own interviews with urban and suburban youth about their social media use and creative digital engagements, many discussed their lack of personal time and the “rushing around” that their lives require. While my childhood was filled with slow and unhurried time, I wonder how current digital realities have shifted experiences of time for rural children today. Do they still experience the kind of time that stretches and lingers as I did? Perhaps the relentless pace of digital participation makes rural experiences of expansive time even more desirable.