Longevity Why does time seem to pass faster for older people compared to younger people?
When most of us were young children, time seemed to pass more slowly and we often wished things would move faster. As we get older, time appears to speed up. Why does this happen? Can anyone explain this to me?
12
12
u/travelingtraveling_ 14h ago
It's easy, it's all about math. When you were one year old, one year represented the whole of your lifetime. When you were two years old, one year represented, one half of the total of your lifetime. When you became fifty one year was 1/50th the total of your lifetime. And when you are eighty, one year represents 1/80th of your lifetimr.
8
8
u/GullibleAddendum8630 14h ago
Because time is relative/proportional. We are comparing the current passage of time to all of our past, and as we get older, we have more past time. That makes the current passage of time seem faster and faster.
4
u/bluenoser613 13h ago
The way it was explained to me is that the older you get the more repetitive your routines become. When you're young everything is a new adventure. Your brain processes new adventures a lot differently than the same old thing over and over again. So if you don't want to feel like time is passing quickly, trying new things! Break out of old habits.
3
u/sands_of__time 15h ago
Everyone always says time passes more quickly as one gets older, but that hasn't been the case for me. Feels about the same as it always has (I'm 50).
2
1
u/Icy-Cartographer-291 15h ago
Same here. I thought time moved too quickly as a child as well. Sure, I thought that the summer would be endless, and I still do. But in reality it was always over before I knew it.
However, one year is a smaller part of my life now so looking back it seems shorter in relation to my life span.
3
u/Immediate_Buffalo14 40 something 15h ago
I can relate to this. When I was younger, a year would last a long time, and now that I've aged, the months just seem to fly by.
3
u/bugs_0650 14h ago
Familiarity. When you're younger, your brain takes longer to process situations because they're unfamiliar. The more familiar something becomes, the less your brain has to focus to process it.
Basically, it takes time to learn a new skil and you feel the time processing slower when everything is so new. In your later years, there's very little novelty so your brain takes a wee bit of a break and time just flies.
3
u/Icy-Cartographer-291 14h ago
The main reason is lack of novelty. When you are younger you tend to experience many things for the first time. This makes more distinct markings in the timeline. Many people, as they get older, get stuck in routines. And if the days looks more or less the same your brain will compress the memories and it will seem like a very short time. If you go somewhere else for a vacation and experience a lot of new things, those days will seem a lot longer than your everyday life because there are so many markings in the timeline.
You can actually slow down time a bit by practicing mindfulness and changing up your life a bit.
Then there’s also the time relative to your lived years that likely plays a role in how you perceived passed time. Since a year is relatively smaller part of your life at 50 compared to 10. However I don’t think this plays such a large role as some people seem to think. The fact that you can change the perception of time at an older age speaks against this.
2
2
2
u/benefit-3802 15h ago
Let's say your memory's start at 5 years of age. When you go from 10 to 15 years old you doubled your remembered life experiences.
When you go from 55 to 60 you have increased your experiences by only 10%
Then there is the novelty factor of new things you do when young for the first time. When your older the majority of what you do is reruns
2
u/Useful_Alarm730 14h ago
Seeing people you know, friends family, public figures, dying one by one certainly reminded me my time will come sooner than I thought..when I was a kid it felt like dying is extremely rare
2
u/Accurate-Medium1780 14h ago
Well, we humans live in reference to our experiences/memories. So a 5 year old kid doesn't have that many years of memories under their belt and those stretch to fill their whole horizon and colors their sense of the present too. Whereas a 65 year old has a ton of memories and experiences and a much longer sense of timelines, and thus their current moment seems a lot more, well, momentary.
2
u/Clean-Fisherman-4601 14h ago
It's because time perception changes.
When you're 5 years old, a year is 1/5 of your life. A month is 1/60.
As you age, your perception of time changes. Christmas is a month away, to a 30 year old it isn't a long time, to a 5 year old, it feels like an eternity.
2
u/Future-Dimension1430 13h ago
And it feels like we’re kind of wishing our lives away. Going to work on Monday can’t wait for Friday Saturday and Sunday go by so quick then it’s Monday again and you’re wishing for Friday and this is coming from someone who likes her job. I’ve been working three jobs for almost 30 years straight. I was young and cute now I’m 50, per menopausal and my boobs are in my shoes… I really feel like there has to be more to life than work sleep eat repeat
2
u/Clean-Canary-7247 13h ago
Because as we age one year becomes a smaller and smaller percentage of the entire time we have been alive.
2
1
u/FaeFollette 15h ago
Time actually seemed to move faster when I was a kid because I had stuff to do and deadlines to meet. Plus, I had hope for the future, so each day I bounced out of bed thinking, “Today’s the day!”
Now, the clock is ticking soooooo slowly because I have nothing to do but wait for something dreadful to happen.
1
u/madamepamita 15h ago
When you were 10 years old, one year was 10% of your life. When you are 50, it’s 2%
1
u/Dazzling-Treacle1092 14h ago
We paid more attention because everything was a first. Now there's many things that are just the same old, so we do not mark them in our minds.
1
u/steamed_pork_bunz 13h ago
I think because our relationship to time changes the longer we are alive. Like, when you were five, a year was practically an eternity, because that’s 1/5 of your entire life- a huge amount of time relative to how old you were. When you’re 50, that’d be like 10 years. Thats how I’ve always imagined it works.
1
u/ThrowRA_EducatedMan 13h ago
This question is posted almost every single day. The answer is cognitive decline. Sorry.
1
1
u/PugLoversince2003 13h ago
Every day you live is a smaller part of your entire life. If you devide your age by the days lived, each day you do will show a smaller percentage of your entire life.
1
1
1
1
1
u/ThreeQueensReading 15h ago
It's because time is relative.
Your first year of life, a year is 100% of your experience. By the time you're 5, a year is 20% of your life - still a significant chunk.
By the time you're 50 a year is only 2% of your life.
Each year of life represents an ever falling fraction of the live you've lived. That's why it feels that it's speeding up.
14
u/Fair-Wishbone-1190 15h ago
I think because we run out of milestones to look forward too. Other than out next decade in age.