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Why time appears to speed up with age

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Re: Why time appears to speed up with age

#2

Post by ashray »

I had come across this concept about a year and a half ago. Read some article about how our brain works to store new experiences and therefore time slows down. That's around the time that I left my full time job to travel full time! I even wrote an article on our travel blog about it:

http://bkpk.me/were-getting-younger-time-dilation-is-real/

This guy has definitely done a very quantitative analysis of my qualitative hunch. Subjecting myself to new experiences, new places and new environments everyday has definitely made time slow down.

My last birthday actually feels like it was a LOOONG while ago. That's because I threw in a bunch of interesting and new experiences over the last year.

I think the real way to feel like your 'real age' is to subject yourselves to new experiences as much as possible. Take a new route home, go to restaurants or parts of your city that you've never been to, learn a foreign language or salsa, learn a new sport, or if possible, travel! :)

Re: Why time appears to speed up with age

#4

Post by SoftwareMaven »

Probably not the article I needed to see after coming home from moving my oldest into his dorm. Guess I might as well go get a rocking chair on the lawn.

Actually, I think this article is wrong in one important way. It doesn't take into account the effect of laying down new memories. The more, new experiences you have, the slower time appears to have passed [past tense, how it's remembered], while, paradoxically, making it pass [present tense, while experiencing] go faster.

So, spend all your time on the couch, watch time pass slow but evaporate. Go do something new and different, watch it fly by while having had more there.

Memories play weirdly with verb tenses...

Re: Why time appears to speed up with age

#5

Post by rdtsc »

Subjectively a good way is to remember how long summers felt when you were a kid. A summer felt like forever in the first couple of grades. Now think how long summers feel now, they just sort of fly by. It is kind of scary.

Remember my grandma sometimes got confused what day or week it was and as a kid I could never understand that. How can you miss such a long period of time like a week and not notice, but now I start to sort of understand.

Re: Why time appears to speed up with age

#9

Post by creamyhorror »

SoftwareMaven wrote: post #4

Probably not the article I needed to see after coming home from moving my oldest into his dorm. Guess I might as well go get a rocking chair on the lawn. Actually, I think this article is wrong in one important way. It doesn't take into account the effect of laying down new memories. The more, new experiences you have, the slower time appears to have passed [past tense, how it's remembered], while, paradoxically, mak…

Good observation on the memories.

During intense periods of memory-forming activity, you feel like time passes quickly, because more things are packed into less time and you move on from one thing to the next (think camps in your childhood when everything was exciting, there was a competition to prepare for, etc.). Once it's actually over, you felt like it just zoomed by so quick, but was packed full of stuff.

It's the same with the grade/primary-school years: each year feels so full of experiences, but before you know it you're in primary/grade 6 and at the start of a new phase, wondering how you got there so quickly. I used to be almost scared by how quickly I moved through the school years, thinking I'd be an adult in no time.

I think young people just tend to have much more packed into their time, which makes it feel longer. You literally live more when you have more different experiences in the same time. That's why I regret it when I think back and realise I haven't been doing anything much different over the past week. I'm going to have to schedule better and make some time for salsa/whatever classes.

So yes, I strongly agree with your conclusion:

> Go do something new and different, watch it fly by while having had more there.

Wring life out of every day.

Re: Why time appears to speed up with age

#10

Post by danso »

ashray wrote: post #2

I had come across this concept about a year and a half ago. Read some article about how our brain works to store new experiences and therefore time slows down. That's around the time that I left my full time job to travel full time! I even wrote an article on our travel blog about it: http://bkpk.me/were-getting-younger-time-dilation-is-real/ This guy has definitely done a very quantitative analysis of my qualitative…

> This guy has definitely done a very quantitative analysis of my qualitative hunch. Subjecting myself to new experiences, new places and new environments everyday has definitely made time slow down.

That's interesting, because most people would say that time seems to go faster when subjected to intense learning/experiences.

For example, from another article on HN's front page right now: http://techcrunch.com/2012/08/18/how-instacart-hacked-yc/

> The next day, I arrived at the meeting location. I faced four YC partners and a barrage of questions about how my business worked and why it would succeed. We talked for almost an hour, but it felt like just a few minutes. I answered questions non-stop.

Perhaps when looking back, time seems to have stretched out during those learning-intensive experiences? But at the moment of the experience, time sped by?

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