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Why time “speeds up” as we get older (2019)

sitn.hms.harvard.edu

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Re: Why time “speeds up” as we get older (2019)

#31

Post by guerrilla »

emreb wrote: post #3

There 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.

This doesn't provide an actual mechanism though. You'd need evidence that our perception of time is dependent on that ratio and then show us a mechanism for it. On the other hand, the article gives a possible mechanism for a different theory.

Re: Why time “speeds up” as we get older (2019)

#33

Post by new_guy »

I would have expected better especially from Harvard, it's already known why. Subjective time is measured in terms of biological impact events.

Basically the more novel experiences you have the slower time seems to pass for you, the less novel (interesting) stuff you do the faster time passes because there's no markers.

This stuff has been known for literally decades now.

Re: Why time “speeds up” as we get older (2019)

#34

Post by c22 »

endisneigh wrote: post #10

If true, how do you fight this without actually going on more unique experiences? I like to think there are some weird swirly images or static noise I can watch/listen to while going about my life that will "novelize" everything. hah.

Have you tried LSD?

Re: Why time “speeds up” as we get older (2019)

#35

Post by memco »

emreb wrote: post #3

There 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.

Had this thought when my daughter was born. Saying, "Hold on a minute" is asking a lot more of her than for myself.

Re: Why time “speeds up” as we get older (2019)

#36

Post by GuardianCaveman »

djmips wrote: post #6

Another 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.

This is why I was enjoying living overseas in different countries because there were so many new experiences some frustrating some good but it did feel like time was moving slower.

Re: Why time “speeds up” as we get older (2019)

#39

Post by jmugan »

jmugan wrote: post #26

I think time speeds up as we grow older because we constantly and subconsciously make predictions. If we subjectively measure time by the flow of unexpected events, as we age, fewer of our predictions are wrong, so there are fewer such events, which speeds up time. New experiences and places slow it down again.

This theory says that encoding the new information is what slows time down. That could be it as well, or both. There might be experiments one could do to tell the two apart. https://www.npr.org/sections/krulwich/2010/02/01/122322542/w...
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