well spent

April 2015

Parsons BFA Undergraduate Thesis Project

Find a more detailed breakdown of the project, research and process here.

This project is now being featured on the Parsons website.

View Full Research Magazine

Not long ago, time was short. At the start of the 20th century, life expectancy at birth in America was 47 years, today it’s 79 years. If about three months continue to be added with each passing year, by the middle of this century, American life expectancy at birth will be 88 years. By the end of the century, it will be 100 years. 

Time doesn’t look like it used to. If our health spans extend too, milestones that used to be so customary — bearing and raising children, marriage, professional success — may adjust and evolve. Now more than ever we can focus on how we personally and uniquely define and value our time. 

Well Spent is an online, evolving digital collection of user responses to a series of questions that empowers and encourages you to look at your time and others’ as parts of a whole. It aims to visualize how time is personally measured, defined and valued with a design that is focused on the written word and messaging. Users input what they would do with an extra hour, day, week, year, five years, fifty years and two hundred years, from right now. Well Spent builds a community through sharing, inspiring and connecting otherwise private thoughts, dreams and wonders. As our lives get longer we can inspire positive change in ourselves and each other to make the most of our time.

Everyone spends their time differently but we all strive to spend it well. Browse and build our collective extending timelines with Well Spent.