On first reflection, time does seem to pass more quickly as we age. I’m 67, and time seems to go faster now than when I was younger. As a child a day in school seemed to take forever, but so too did summer vacation. As an old professor, a school year seems to fly by. When I was a kid I thought something twenty years ago was prehistoric, now twenty years ago was 2002. And 2002 seems downright futuristic compared to the 1960s I remember.
But do we really experience time moving faster as we age? Probably not. BBC science writer Claudia Hammond’s recent article suggests that the idea that time accelerates as we age is mostly a myth. We measure time’s objective passing about the same at any age. But, as she says in her book, Time Warped: Unlocking the mysteries of Time Perception, the experience of time’s passing “depends on the time frame you are considering. In time perception studies, adults in a mid-life report that the hours and days pass at what feels like a normal speed; it is the years that flash by.”
Hammond believes this is because we assess time in two different ways. We can look at how fast time seems to pass in the present, or we can look retrospectively at how fast previous years or decades seemed to pass. Looked at retrospectively, time seems to go faster as we age. “The days still feel as though they pass at an average speed, but we’re surprised when markers of time indicated how many months and years have passed or at how quickly birthdays come round yet again.” But why? Hammond hypothesizes:
Part of the reason is that as we get older life inevitably brings fewer fresh experiences, and more routines. Because we use the number of new memories we form to gauge how much time has passed, an average week that doesn’t loom large in the memory gives the illusion that time is shrinking.
To combat this phenomenon Hammond suggests we fill our time with new experiences. On the other hand, “we do have to ask ourselves whether we really want to slow time down. If you look at the circumstances where evidence tells us that time goes slowly, they include having a very high temperature, feeling rejected and experiencing depression.”
Richard A. Friedman, a professor of clinical psychiatry at Weill Cornell Medical College has also found that the idea that objective time is speeding up as you age is illusory. “On the whole, most of us perceive short intervals of time similarly, regardless of age.” However, “when researchers asked the subjects about the 10-year interval, older subjects were far more likely than the younger subjects to report that the last decade had passed quickly.” So “Why … do older people look back at long stretches of their lives and feel it’s a race to the finish?”
Friedman’s answer is similar to Hammond’s. When you are younger “you are forming a fairly steady stream of new memories of events, places and people.” Then as an adult when “you look back at your childhood experiences, they appear to unfold in slow motion probably because the sheer number of them gives you the impression that they must have taken forever to acquire.”
But this is merely an illusion, the way adults understand the past when they look through the telescope of lost time. This, though, is not an illusion: almost all of us faced far steeper learning curves when we were young. Most adults do not explore and learn about the world the way they did when they were young; adult life lacks the constant discovery and endless novelty of childhood.
“Studies have shown that the greater the cognitive demands of a task, the longer its duration is perceived to be,” so perhaps ” learning new things might slow down our internal sense of time.” This may also be part of the solution to the apparent speeding up of time as we age:
if you want time to slow down, become a student again. Learn something that requires sustained effort; do something novel. Put down the thriller when you’re sitting on the beach and break out a book on evolutionary theory or Spanish for beginners or a how-to book on something you’ve always wanted to do. Take a new route to work; vacation at an unknown spot. And take your sweet time about it.
I think this is right. We can squeeze a bit more out of life by continually developing. After all, the art of staying young is in large part a matter of continually learning new truths, and unlearning old falsehoods.
As for me the motion of time is the same always. But, it seems faster as we grow older by counting years behind. I think it is due to our eagerness to see longer years and enjoy increased fortunes in this life, rather than longing life in the future World, which after Death. Since, I am evangelical believer I believe time’s motion is constant and our age continues growing older and older in the same motion.
Hello, Professor:
I have been thinking about this. Since we are telling, I am 74. Time is a concept, a measuring stick, instilled in us from the time we can grasp the installation…see, we can’t even talk about it, without talking about it. It measures worth and filling it, in some productive way, earns us a living—if we are lucky. It is only a concept. Things, living or inanimate, exist for some period and go away. In my story, they break down, blow up, fall apart and wear out. The first three causations are often repairable, the last, not so much. We use metaphorical language when talking about much of this, i.e., “it has stood the test of time”…if the “it” has , through all this, been restored, that only substantiates a previous point.
There will always BE time, metaphorical or no…we have to have the measuring stick. And, yes, it seems to go faster for us now. In reality, however, it ‘goes’ nowhere at all.
Very interesting post. My views remain essentially unchanged, as I wrote in my other comments, i.e. I cannot identify with most of the experiences the researchers mention, for example when my ‘cognitive skills’ are more involved, time definitely goes faster for me; conversely, when I a bored (no ‘cognitive skills’ are involved) time seems to go slower. Most of the rest was already explained by Schopenhauer, and I feel he even explained something the researchers did not (though of course I cannot be sure, since I have not read their books), for example, when we are ten years old, five years feel essentially like half of our life, but when we are fifty, doesn’t it feels rather like a tenth of it? This is what Schopenhauer explained, and I feel there’s something to it. I am not saying that S has the last word about everything, but I don’t feel like these researchers might have it, either. I continue to be shocked by the passage of time, and it seems it becomes more and more violent.
It is ironic, to me, that the researchers speak of illusions. Their advice is well meant, but simplistic…..trying to learn a new language won’t slow down time, or slow down our perception of it going faster, whichever is the right answer.
Interestingly, S wrote about this in one of his last letters. He was constantly learning until the very end, and wrote about how he didn’t have the time to open a book that the day would already be over.
Frankly, this is exactly my experience. I try to wake up at dawn, and a little while later, the sun is setting already.
Perhaps it also depends from one’s personality? We observe from time to time someone who seems to take their sweet time for most things, whilst we feel like there’s never enough time. I remember a passage in an excellent autobiography by former F1 champion Niki Lauda, when he went to meet someone for some business related matters. I don’t remember the exact words but he wrote something like this:
”I just could not understand it. I was waking up early in the morning to get immediately to work, and always felt that there was some unfinished business by the time the day ended. Yet this man asked me to meet him while fishing. He said that he like to go fishing regularly, and he did everything as if he had all the time in the world to do it.”.
I observe people like that too, for example these chaps walking VERY slowly. This amazes me. They seem to be ok whether they need 15 minutes to walk a distance that would take a fifth of the time.
Perhaps our awareness of time has something to do with our perception of it going faster. After all, the younger we were, the less we were aware of time and all that ‘hidden stuff’. We were too busy with the appearances of the world around us, something S also explained.
I apologize about my constantly mentioning S. He’s as annoying as he was when he was around. 🙂
Thank you so much for your essay!
There’s a reason why a new born baby welcomes in the New Year while an elderly gent exits. Youth looks forward with dreams of love and challenges to come…and it can’t come quick enough for them, thus their impatience and the sense of slowness with the track they are on. Imagine my bewilderment when I turned 21 and didn’t suddenly become omniscient. There’s not a lot of future left for those of us aging. Death is not something any of us are looking forward to. That is why I follow the author’s suggestion of learning something new. Tomorrow and the day after tomorrow, I will take new paths on my daily walks, perhaps that path least traveled. Surprises still thrill me.
thanks for the thoughtful comments. As for S, you saved a lot of time not writing his name each time:) But I’ve always thought he is a very underrated philosopher.
thanks Kevin for the beautiful thoughts.
”As for S, you saved a lot of time not writing his name each time:)”
Ha ha. No kidding. My writing is as awkward as the mouthful ‘S’ stands for. :).
Whether or not it is an illusion, I am trapped in it, and it never ceases to feel real. It is actually very strange how it is all described in the striking song “Time” by Pink Floyd:
” And you run, and you run to catch up with the sun, but it’s sinking
Racing around to come up behind you again
The sun is the same in a relative way, but you’re older
Shorter of breath, and one day closer to death
Every year is getting shorter, never seem to find the time”
https://youtu.be/F_VjVqe3KJ0