LATE DOESN'T ALWAYS MEAN LAZY

What psychology says about time blindness and where responsibility lies

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If you know someone who has developed a habit of running late and is often embarrassed for letting down friends for their tardiness, and is routinely stressed about arriving on time, it might not be entirely their fault.

They might be experiencing a symptom sometimes called "time blindness," a condition that many people with ADHD or autism might struggle with.

Russell Barkley, a retired clinical neuropsychologist at the University of Massachusetts, is often credited with linking time impairment with people with ADHD or autism. In 1997, he called it "temporal myopia."

But recently, time blindness has sparked a social media debate: Where is the line between a genuine condition and someone who is disorganised or just plain rude?

When arriving late means more

Time blindness is the inability to determine how long a task will take or conceptualise how much time has passed. It relates to executive function that occurs in the frontal lobes of the brain, and it is a well-documented characteristic of many people with ADHD, said Stephanie Sarkis, a psychotherapist in Tampa Bay, Florida.