Why Dates and Times Seem to Lose Their Meaning
wsj.com
wsj.com
When does the harvest come? How long since it's rained? How long since your kin went out on that hunting party (or off the trail to urinate?)
Do you have time to hit the store on the way to your next appointment? Do you have time this weekend to visit the in-laws?
Estimating and forecasting are vital components of adult logistical arrangements, and a basic, inescapable mental faculty of mammals. It's absurd to think a sentient adult can "live in the moment" without conceptually processing past and future and not starve to death—let alone hold down a 20th century profession.
Having a critical faculty disrupted by physiological stressors is reasonably pathologized.
so the "present" may be a second, zero seconds (with lots of math), or even 1000 years.
I think the issue raised by the article is that people's 'present' seems to be shrinking. Which as the sibling comment expands on means that people can't plan effectively.
Now with that being said I think that the article is a load of B.S. It is a ridiculous shirking of responsibility to say "I can't plan because I have this issue called 'temporal disintegration' caused by the vague trauma of current events". I am not saying trauma isn't real, but sometimes I see it used by people to externalize their locus of control. When has it ever been easy to be a human on this Earth? Get over yourself.