Why time “speeds up” as we get older (2019) • Hacker News Board

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

#111

Post by lsaferite » Thu, Nov 04, 2021, 8:23 PM UTC

cassianoleal wrote: post #90

ASalazarMX wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is my impression as well. Old people who have settled in a routine can tell what year and month it is, but probably have a harder time telling the day or weekday. For them, all days are weekends. You don't even need to be old to feel this. I've had vacations where I mostly played JRPGs, and those vacations certainly felt considerably shorter.

JRPGs, as well as the Civ games, are time compressors. You blink and 5 hours have passed.

Games like factorio must be 'super compressors'.

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

#112

Post by darkwater » Thu, Nov 04, 2021, 8:34 PM UTC

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.

It's totally unscientific but in my opinion it's like when you are hiking a path you never did and when you reach your destination, you hike back. Going back always feels faster even if the pace is exactly the same, but you already know the path, you remember some rock, or that view, or those oaks. And your brain works less. We have routines when we are small children just like we have when we are adults so it might be that as we grow older the brain is in power saving mode and that feels like going back through a path you already know.

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

#113

Post by eafkuor » Thu, Nov 04, 2021, 8:37 PM UTC

cassianoleal wrote: post #90

ASalazarMX wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is my impression as well. Old people who have settled in a routine can tell what year and month it is, but probably have a harder time telling the day or weekday. For them, all days are weekends. You don't even need to be old to feel this. I've had vacations where I mostly played JRPGs, and those vacations certainly felt considerably shorter.

JRPGs, as well as the Civ games, are time compressors. You blink and 5 hours have passed.

God, really? I can't take those for more than 1h at a time usually. Except Chrono Trigger I guess. Any recommendations?

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

#114

Post by ImaCake » Thu, Nov 04, 2021, 8:45 PM UTC

necrotic_comp wrote: post #4

I really don't feel this at all. I am constantly doing new things, constantly learning things, and time feels like it stretches on forever. I'm over 40, so this isn't the effect of me just starting my career. 10 years ago feels 10 years ago, and this effect of time speeding up just doesn't register with me.

I am at 30 and the last year has felt just as long as 2011 did for me. I've been seeing these articles and comments about time speeding up since my teens and I am still waiting for it to happen to me. I am inclined to think the perception of time is tied to routine or behaviour and ageing is merely a confounder. This would explain the lack of time dilation for me - my life is still somewhat unstable and filled with novelty, so I don't really forget large chunks of time doing routine stuff.

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

#115

Post by razzimatazz » Thu, Nov 04, 2021, 9:07 PM UTC

fasteo wrote: post #44

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 is mathematically true, but it does not explain the effect. It reminded me of the calories in, calories out thing. You gain weight because you eat more calories that you burn. This is, again, mathematically correct, but it offers no explanation of the why Why do you eat more than you burn ? you move too little ? you eat too much ? your brain malfunctions and it is unable to detect food intake ?

I think I'm wired with the potential to eat more than I burn because the opposite is dangerous (long-term) and its hard to anticipate future burn when I eat. There would need to be a lot of food 'abundance' for the negative effects of this to ever come to fruition to the point of influencing evolution, and fixing the brain malfunction.

(Maybe I misunderstand your angle).

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

#116

Post by tuatoru » Thu, Nov 04, 2021, 9:12 PM UTC

lsaferite wrote: post #111

cassianoleal wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

JRPGs, as well as the Civ games, are time compressors. You blink and 5 hours have passed.

Games like factorio must be 'super compressors'.

And Kerbal Space Program.

Why are those birds cheeping? Oh, it's the dawn chorus. Again.

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

#117

Post by Buttons840 » Thu, Nov 04, 2021, 9:14 PM UTC

> As we age, he argues, the size and complexity of the networks of neurons in our brains increases

I thought the number of neural connections decreased throughout most of life? They surge in babies and teenagers, but are otherwise declining most of the time.

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

#118

Post by d23 » Thu, Nov 04, 2021, 9:37 PM UTC

gmfawcett wrote: post #21

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 a much more compelling argument than the article's.

This is more intuitive, but I don't know that it makes it more compelling for me. I find the article's hypothesis a bit more interesting, since it's not exactly what one would expect.

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

#119

Post by datadawg » Thu, Nov 04, 2021, 9:53 PM UTC

If our perception of events are in relation to our past experiences, that could also explain this phenomenon. For example let's say you think back to that carefree, fun summer when you were five years old and marvel at how long that seemed to last, compared to the summer at age thirty that you barely remember. Well that 3-month summer made up 3 / (5 x 12) or 5% of your life at age five but only 3 / ( 30 x 12) or 0.8% of your life at age thirty, so the memory from age five would be 6x more salient (ignoring other factors like uniqueness of experience, how "present" you are, visual information processing, etc). Or maybe you were just on a real bender that summer you turned 30.

edit: just realized emreb has a similar comment after reading further down the thread!

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

#120

Post by ASalazarMX » Thu, Nov 04, 2021, 10:00 PM UTC

pugworthy wrote: post #108

ASalazarMX wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is my impression as well. Old people who have settled in a routine can tell what year and month it is, but probably have a harder time telling the day or weekday. For them, all days are weekends. You don't even need to be old to feel this. I've had vacations where I mostly played JRPGs, and those vacations certainly felt considerably shorter.

You might correct that to "people who don't work" instead of "old people".

Not necessarily. People who don't work aren't necessarily living boring lives.