Does it really? To me time speeds up when I am not doing new things. When I do new things time goes as slow now as it did 20 years ago. Just pull up your life by its roots and time slows down to a crawl, then as you get used to your new life it gradually speeds up towards infinity, so you just repeat this process to perceptually live longer.
Why time “speeds up” as we get older (2019)
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Re: Why time “speeds up” as we get older (2019)
#12There is a simpler layman's explanation for this one. As you get older every second of your life starts being a smaller percentage of your overall experience. When you a 2 years old, 1 hour is 1/17520 of your life. When you are 50 years old, 1 hour is 1/438000 of your life.
It’s not immediately obvious to me why this would result in the perception that time moves more quickly. The theory in the article did strike me as quite plausible.
It is kind of horrifying though - it is in your face evidence of cognitive decline.
Re: Why time “speeds up” as we get older (2019)
#13There is a simpler layman's explanation for this one. As you get older every second of your life starts being a smaller percentage of your overall experience. When you a 2 years old, 1 hour is 1/17520 of your life. When you are 50 years old, 1 hour is 1/438000 of your life.
To put it a different way: for the 2 year old last week was about 1% of their entire existence.
For that 50 year old it was just 0.03%.
Re: Why time “speeds up” as we get older (2019)
#14There is a simpler layman's explanation for this one. As you get older every second of your life starts being a smaller percentage of your overall experience. When you a 2 years old, 1 hour is 1/17520 of your life. When you are 50 years old, 1 hour is 1/438000 of your life.
I agree with your theory much more than that of the article. I’m not sure why, but I’ve always had the same theory so maybe it’s just confirmation bias.
At any rate, I’m old and I can confirm that the speeding up isn’t just a myth.
Re: Why time “speeds up” as we get older (2019)
#15Another hunch that I have is that as you get older you tend to have less unique experiences. I believe our brains compress the information and an entire day that was much like the previous day can just feel like it sped by quickly. Alternatively, if you go on vacation or change your routine then time will slow down as you process a lot of new information.
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Re: Why time “speeds up” as we get older (2019)
#16There is a simpler layman's explanation for this one. As you get older every second of your life starts being a smaller percentage of your overall experience. When you a 2 years old, 1 hour is 1/17520 of your life. When you are 50 years old, 1 hour is 1/438000 of your life.
I don't understand how that explains the sense of speed-up? E.g. when I read a novel, the last few pages don't fly by any faster than the first ones do.
I actually disagree with your novel example. When I read a novel, the first half of the book is building up to the second half. There's so much uncompressed information that I take in. Learning the characters, learning the environment, etc. While I read the same WPM, the second half FEELS faster to me because now I'm on to the good stuff and the details are behind me. I'm over the hump.
Re: Why time “speeds up” as we get older (2019)
#17There is a simpler layman's explanation for this one. As you get older every second of your life starts being a smaller percentage of your overall experience. When you a 2 years old, 1 hour is 1/17520 of your life. When you are 50 years old, 1 hour is 1/438000 of your life.
I've heard this on HN before and it seems less likely than an actual neuroscientific interpretation - we don't perceive time in a fractional sense on a moment-to-moment basis.
Re: Why time “speeds up” as we get older (2019)
#18I'm just losing myself in the waves of time... Wish it would all slow down.
Re: Why time “speeds up” as we get older (2019)
#19There is a simpler layman's explanation for this one. As you get older every second of your life starts being a smaller percentage of your overall experience. When you a 2 years old, 1 hour is 1/17520 of your life. When you are 50 years old, 1 hour is 1/438000 of your life.
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Re: Why time “speeds up” as we get older (2019)
#20Honestly I think my work and job seriously compounds this effect. Theres just no way to have so many unique experiences staring at a computer all day.