Does Time Go Faster As You Get Older?

In My Humble Opinion
1

I can remember as a kid that the time from Thanksgiving to Christmas was eons.
The week before Christmas seemed to last years.
It also seemed like summer vacations from school (June/July/August) was eternal.

However, as I get older, it seems like months turn into weeks.

There isn’t even dust on the Christmas ornaments in the boxes downstairs and I am cleaning up the patio outside and Walmart is already having a sale on summer BBQ grills…

Is it just me, or does time seem to be going faster as I age?

2

I certainly feel that way and I’m not even 20 yet. People were talking about midterms a week ago when I could have sworn I just got back from Christmas break.

3

Yeah. I notice this whenever it’s time to set the clocks for daylight saving time. “Hang on! I’m sure I set the clock in the other direction just last week!” I swear, all I ever have time to do is to set those damned clocks back and forth. It all flies by so quickly that I sometimes lose track of it completely. I sometimes find myself looking out the window and thinking “that’s some odd weather for… hang on, what month are we in now? Actually, what *season *are we in now?” I’m pretty sure *that *didn’t happen when I was a kid. Also, I was reading a thread earlier about a woman who was worried about her fifteen year old daughter who was going by herself on an airplane. The daughter hadn’t gone flying by herself since she was seven. Just before 9/11. I had to do a double take on that one. Waitaminute… but 9/11 was just like… last month. The time that passed for me between ages seven and fifteen was a million years.

Something fishy is going on.

4

Time doesn’t go faster of course, but it most certainly seems to. And the older you get the faster it seems to fly by.

I’ve always thought it ought to be the other way around. When you’re young and have all that time ahead, and you’re anxious to grow up and drive and be done with school and get out on your own, that’s when time should fly. Then, when you’re older and you have developed the wisdom and maturity that allows you to truly enjoy life, and less time lies ahead, that’s when time should seem to pass more slowly.

Unfortunately, no one asked me about all this when it was being set up. :stuck_out_tongue:

5

Once you’re over the hill, you pick up speed. I’m on the luge to hell.

6

I figure it’s something to do with new information. When you’re very young you are absorbing all the sensory input that surrounds you, disseminating new information that may be completely unlike anything you have seen before, and that sheer amount of info is making time seem slower.

Whereas when you get older, that information is no longer new, it’s tempered by a considerable amount of existing knowledge and expectation and assumption, so in real terms the truly new things are so little as to make time seem, comparatively, faster.

I base this theory on almost no comprehension of the human mind whatsoever.

7

Heck yeah!

I just noticed today that it’s almost the end of March. Wasn’t it New Year’s very recently?

A couple theories why this happens
**1) **When you’re 5, 1 more year is 20% of your life-till-now.
And if you count that we have memories starting at around age 2, 1 more year is 33% of your conscious-life-till-now.

When you’re 35, 1 more year is 3% of your conscious-life-till-now.

So, 1 more year when you are 35 is a much smaller proportion of the life you have lived till now, and so seems less significant than 1 more year when you are 5 years old.

**2) **As a kid, it is like you are an alien on a new planet, always learning new things about it (things fall, broken things can’t be put back together, fire burns, there is no Santa, math, history, etc)

As an adult, you know most of what there is to know about this planet, and so months or years go by before you learn anything new and exciting.

So, days seem very similar to each other, which makes it harder to remember individually, and makes them blend into some amorphous past

**3) ** As you grow, your metabolism slows, and most likely the rate at which you process information.

For small insects such as flies, which process information much faster than us, time goes by very slowly (e.g. 1 minute seems to take a long time). For large animals, such as elephants, which process information slower than us, time goes by faster (e.g. 1 year seems very fast)

If the above is correct, then as we age, we process information slower, making us perceive that time is going faster.

8

:eek:

…
:wink:

9

I don’t have an answer for you, but time definitely goes more slowly when I’m working out on the elliptical trainer! :slight_smile:

10

As others said it sure seems that way.

When I was younger and had two small children it seemed like time stood still. It took forever for them to walk and talk much less start kindergarten.

Like Polerius I too realized it is the end of March. Another week and it is April. Were the hell did February go? Did we skip it this year? Oh wait I do remember hearing something about a groundhog.

I was very young when I had my kids and I always made fun of the fact that both of my kids would be of legal age right before I hit fourty. Well this is the year it all happens. My son turns twenty in September, my daughter turns eighteen in October and I hit the big 40 in November. It is flying up on me a lot faster then it previously felt like it would.

If time is fliying by this fast now I can’t imagine what it is going to be like twenty years from now. Blink and another year is gone.

Nine more months until Christmas. :eek:

11

Heck yes. Sometimes the days drag, but the months fly by. In fact they accelerate.

12

I have long held Polerius’ first theory for this phenomenon.

The fact that one year is now only 3% of my life, vs. 20% as a young child, makes a huge difference in how we perceive time. It is also the most likely explanation given our lack of truly new world discoveries past about age 16. (Obviously we still learn, but I’m learning every day on my job, so it’s not like I stopped learning. I’m talking about ‘wow, there’s a giant ball in the sky!’ type of stuff.) The fact is, I’ve been married to my wife for nearly 5 years, and it has gone by so much faster than the 4 years of high school did, that’s for sure. I can’t even imagine how fast my daughter will seem to grow up (she should be here in about 6 weeks.)

13

Yeah, it only seems to go faster in hindsight. A day feels just as long now as it did when I was a kid, especially if I’m looking forward to something. But a year ago doesn’t feel very long ago, because relatively speaking, from my point of view, it isn’t. It’s a small fraction of my conscious life. To someone who’s four years old now, though, the last year is essentially their entire life so far. It’s the longest expanse of time that they can comprehend.

14

I really like #3 here. Not too long ago, I wondered how the heck flies have such amazing reflexes. I wondered if they actually perceive time happening slower than we do. If you take the difference in size of a fly vs a human, it would be a few million times, I would think. Perhaps the reason why they can dodge a newspaper so easily is because they see it approaching much slower than we would imagine. Imagine a giant newspaper flying at us from the same distance, proportionally. It would be several miles away. We’d see it in advance and take cover. And it would likely take a few seconds rather than sub-second to reach us. We’d likely see the newspaper and be able to move out of the way, as long as we saw it coming. Unfortunately we don’t have like, 50 eyes on the top of our heads to see dangers like that approaching.

Now take a look at a larger, more lumbering species, like a blue whale. Those things are huge, and they seem to move very slowly, at least, proportional to their body size. I wonder if, to them, we move very quickly… do they see us and wonder how the heck we move so fast?

15

Sure does.

Are you ready for Christmas?

16

Isn’t it a bit of a myth that metabolism slows as you grow older? Older people tend to be less active and therefore have lower muscle mass, due to lifestyle changes (e.g. having a desk job) or various kinds of infirmity. But a fit and active 50-year-old?

17

Yes, I’m almost 50 and weeks go by almost faster than I can notice.

18

Heck! How will I have time to get my shopping done?

I’m not even kidding.

19

You know how on a roller coaster ride, it’s always faster as you near the end? It’s kind of like that, I’m afraid. So much of your day is done doing or things you’ve done before, or thinking about things you’ve thought of before. Boredom doesn’t help either: as Paul in Saudi put it, sometimes the days drag, but the months fly by.

You’re cruising on autopilot on a flight with no landing strip.

Just try not to think about it.

Every year is getting shorter, never seem to find the time
Plans that either come to naught, or half a page of scribbled lines
Hanging on in quiet desperation is the English way
The time is gone, the song is over
Thought I’d something more to say
(Pink Floyd)

20

I think on some level you measure time against what has gone before. When you’re seven, a summer is a substantial chunk of time measured against the ~84 months you’ve racked up. Not so much, as you approach forty.

That, and days get filled up with so much cussed stuff to do.