Keep track of how much time is spent showing certain elements on the page

Here you go:

HTML:

<div id="divs">
    <div>First</div>
    <div class="selected">Second</div>
    <div>Third</div>
    <div>Fourth</div>
</div>

<p id="output"></p>

JavaScript:

var divs = $('#divs > div'),
    output = $('#output'),
    tarr = [0, 0, 0, 0],
    delay = 100;

divs.click(function() {
    $(this).addClass('selected').siblings().removeClass('selected');
});

setInterval(function() {
    var idx = divs.filter('.selected').index();
    tarr[idx] = tarr[idx] + delay;
    output.text('Times (in ms): ' + tarr);
}, delay);

Live demo: http://jsfiddle.net/7svZr/2/

I keep the times in milliseconds because integers are cleaner and safer (0.1 + 0.2 != 0.3). Note that you can adjust the "precision" (the delay of the interval function) by setting the delay variable.

At any point, you can record a a start/lap time in a variable with:

var start = new Date();

When you want to calculate the elapsed time, simply subtract the stored date from a new Date instance:

var elapsed = new Date() - start;

This will give you the elapsed time in milliseconds. Do additional math (division) to calculate seconds, minutes, etc.

Here is a reusable class, example is included in code:

/*
     Help track time lapse - tells you the time difference between each "check()" and since the "start()"

 */
var TimeCapture = function () {
    var start = new Date().getTime();
    var last = start;
    var now = start;
    this.start = function () {
        start = new Date().getTime();
    };
    this.check = function (message) {
        now = (new Date().getTime());
        console.log(message, 'START:', now - start, 'LAST:', now - last);
        last = now;
    };
};

//Example:
var time = new TimeCapture();
//begin tracking time
time.start();
//...do stuff
time.check('say something here')//look at your console for output
//..do more stuff
time.check('say something else')//look at your console for output
//..do more stuff
time.check('say something else one more time')//look at your console for output