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Why Does Time Fly By As You Get Older?

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Re: Why Does Time Fly By As You Get Older?

#11
post #10

There is a relatively new form of psychology called Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT). It basically marries eastern philosophy and meditation with western science. One thing it does try to do is combat this sensation by living in the moment. In one of my ACT books (written by the founder of the movement), he advocates that as you drive to work you should practice staying in that moment, take it all in, don't le…

Sounds interesting. But I'm really not interested in having my commute feel any longer than absolutely necessary.

Re: Why Does Time Fly By As You Get Older?

#12
post #11
post #10

There is a relatively new form of psychology called Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT). It basically marries eastern philosophy and meditation with western science. One thing it does try to do is combat this sensation by living in the moment. In one of my ACT books (written by the founder of the movement), he advocates that as you drive to work you should practice staying in that moment, take it all in, don't le…

Sounds interesting. But I'm really not interested in having my commute feel any longer than absolutely necessary.

It's just an exercise :) But I guess rereading my comment I didn't really make that clear.

Re: Why Does Time Fly By As You Get Older?

#13
because you don't have the same amount of free time as before.

When you are a kid, all you have is a little bit of school. And then most of the day is free to do whatever you want.

When you are an adult, you work from 8 to 6(counting commuting). You come back from work, you don't relax, you go cook yourself dinner. Then you eat your dinner. And have 3 hours of relaxation before you go to sleep and repeat the process. On weekends? You go to home depot, you go through the mail etc.

As a kid, you might have 30 hours of "free" time when you have nothing to do. While as an adult, that number might be 5-6 hours, since you have so many more obligations.

Re: Why Does Time Fly By As You Get Older?

#14
At least for me, I'm not buying the novelty effect. I have two kids and everyday is not only something new for them, but it's new for me as I watch them grow and as I grapple with parenthood, all of which is filled with unique and novel experiences and feelings. Instead of slowing down time, it feels like time has only sped up even further.

Re: Why Does Time Fly By As You Get Older?

#16
post #3
post #2

Maybe this is naive, but the younger you are, the larger the ratio of each unit of time to your total time lived. So each unit of time seems longer.

That's what I always thought.Plus when you're older, for most I'd guess, your life becomes full of routines. I used to think sitting through a 3 hour lecture was an eternity. Now after sitting at a desk for 10 hours a day 3 hours is just seen as a morning.

I thought this article explains it pretty well: http://www.acm.org/ubiquity/volume_9/v9i39_yaffe.html

Re: Why Does Time Fly By As You Get Older?

#20
I think that the hypothesis proposed in this article sounds like it's certainly a part of the effect we feel, but there is likely some support that the percentage of our live thus far that each moment adds up to plays a role in our sense of time passing as well.

Think though, to your novel experiences later in life and how time passed. I can certainly say that even though just recently I left Canada (my home country) for the first time, to go to Mexico, I can recall every second of it, and it did seem to take a long time.

So I would argue memories are encoded based on what is perceived, and I think we perceive what is most important to us at the time. This is often something we are learning; something novel. Routine is not encoded carefully because it is not important to us. We aren't learning anything new when we follow our routines. But when we experience new things, we are learning. The density of the memory at this time gives a prolonged time passage effect I imagine.

There is a similar psychological effect: Think in terms of your closest acquaintances or, better yet, a new love interest. Because you spend so much time with them, getting to know them, you encode a lot of memories that involve them, and so when you are apart for a short period of time, it seems like much longer. This is quite noticeable after a break up, when you're time with someone goes from very high to zero.

Those are some of my thoughts anyhow.

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