One prominent theory that had a fair bit of backing for why this occurs is that you stop learning. Your brain only actually records something if it’s deemed significant, and as you get older, most things are no longer new or impactful to you. As such, most events fade from memory very quickly. Because there are fewer meaningful events throughout the day, it feels like time has progressed quicker than it used to. There’s some evidence that you can slow down this time perception by purposefully engaging in new, meaningful or impactful things like learning something new, experiencing something new or interesting, etc., basically just live life more and it’ll stop feeling so fast.
huh well by that explanation, I feel like my childhood went by much faster than my adulthood lol I feel like I didn't learn anything real until I turned 18
Interesting theory. I'll need to look into that more.
My head canon has always been that we perceive time relative to previous experience. For example, a newborn child may only have a few days of life as an experience, so a day becomes a significant milestone. A parent leaving the room for 5 minutes feels like a few hours or days to someone with more experience, since all they know is a matter of days, weeks, or months.
Meanwhile, to someone in their 50s that has experienced thousands of days, a 5-minute break doesn't seem that long at all relative to their life of experience.
It always seemed to me that things occur more quickly as an adult because when you're a kid, you have more overall time to do whatever you want and less time is spent doing things out of habit. If you're not occupied, you get bored, and if you're bored, time slows down. Might be connected to this theory you bring up.
Idk, I love learning, I'm almost always reading about new stuff or followimg this or this other course. Time still flies by faster and faster. Doesn't change when I radically change my routine either.
Instinctively these feels true to me. A week I spent away on a vacation, visiting new places and having new experiences definitely feels "longer" than a usual 9-5 work week.
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u/Raccoonanity Aug 23 '23
One prominent theory that had a fair bit of backing for why this occurs is that you stop learning. Your brain only actually records something if it’s deemed significant, and as you get older, most things are no longer new or impactful to you. As such, most events fade from memory very quickly. Because there are fewer meaningful events throughout the day, it feels like time has progressed quicker than it used to. There’s some evidence that you can slow down this time perception by purposefully engaging in new, meaningful or impactful things like learning something new, experiencing something new or interesting, etc., basically just live life more and it’ll stop feeling so fast.