How do black holes bend time near them?

According to general relativity, gravity affects not only motion but also time itself. Near a black hole, spacetime is warped so strongly that clocks tick more slowly relative to clocks far away. The closer you are to the event horizon, the stronger the time dilation becomes. This does not mean time stops for the falling observer, but it can appear dramatically slowed to a distant observer. The effect is important in understanding black hole environments, accretion disks, and the behavior of matter near compact objects. Scientists have confirmed related time-dilation effects with precise atomic clocks and satellites, though not in the extreme black-hole regime.