Philosophy

...in the sense that we perceive it. The passage of time seems to be perception relative to the observation of cause and effect. We see something happen which affects other things as a direct result. This, by reason of our perception, does not appear to us as simultaneous, therefore we see a then and a now.

By using the word synchronized, you imply time as extant for the reasons mentioned. The earth is here in its orbit, and over there, but never at what appears to be the same moment. A clock is a measuring device which allows us to mark time meaningfully, however, it isn't time itself. Time is perceptual and measurable if only to quantify the basic principle of cause and effect.

In fact, time is very fluid in our perception, being compressed and stretched whether we are paying attention to it or not. We do something that we dislike and time drags. We do something we love and look up and hours have passed. Time? Real, I would say, since cause and effect are real, that's just a word we use to quantify the perception, that which we are quantifying is a real phenomenon. We can do things and things happen as a result in predictable ways. Whether the universe requires time as something that can be reliably measured, as a part of its natural operation, is debatable, but time is real in the sense that not everything in the universe happens all at once, nor apparently can it.