Current Events > Alright, an actual question for adults.

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Have you noticed that compared to when you were younger, your perception of time has sped up?
Basically meaning that things like years can seem like a shorter time than they are.
Im 15 and Ive noticed its sped up quite a bit what about you?

Yes, this is natural.

It's believed to be because as you get older, you have less developmental milestones compared to when you were younger.

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I'm in my 30s and have absolutely noticed this. I also feel like I zone out more and forget stuff more than I used to, which probably doesn't help my perception of time.

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Solar_Crimson posted...

Yes, this is natural.

It's believed to be because as you get older, you have less developmental milestones compared to when you were younger.

I think part of it is also that when youre 10, one year is a whole 10% of your life so it seems longer than a year does when youre 50 because a year then is only 2% of your life.

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Naps are now part of my routine which doesnt help with the perception of time thing ugh

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No, people just get stuck in routines and that's what makes it go by

Drive to work, sit at a desk, drive home, play games, watch Netflix, repeat

My days are all different and my years seem very long

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The answer is more responsibilities. If you just take a day and stare at the wall, you may find that time has not actually sped up and you were just so busy you kinda stopping noticing time as you shuffle from one adult thing to the next.

WingsOfGood posted...

The answer is more responsibilities. If you just take a day and stare at the wall, you may find that time has not actually sped up and you were just so busy you kinda stopping noticing time as you shuffle from one adult thing to the next.

I dont know if thats true. I waste all of my time doing stupid shit instead of taking care of my responsibilities and it still feels like time is passing by faster and faster

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Life is like a roll of toilet paper. The closer you get to the end, the faster it seems to go.

I once read it is because less things are a new experience and so your brain is auto-ignoring more things and it makes it seem like the perception of time is faster.

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you can experience this in a single day

if you do just one thing the entire day, like playing videogames, it goes by so fast
if you do a lot of different things like go out, meet people, have different activities, at the end of the day you'll be like "wow that was today still?"


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Recently Ive been worrying about my time speeding up, but from the responses I can tell why its speeding up now. These days I dont socialize much if at all so I just do the same thing every day.
Though I think I know what to do to keep it slow and my life entertaining. Thanks for the responses.

Wake up like super early. It helps a bit.
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Njolk posted...

No, people just get stuck in routines and that's what makes it go by

Drive to work, sit at a desk, drive home, play games, watch Netflix, repeat

My days are all different and my years seem very long

This.

Once you get your "real" job, you tend to fall into a routine, making every day feel similar. Unlike when you're still in school and, while you still have somewhat of a routine, there's more "events" breaking up the routine to make each day/week feel different. Whether it's hanging out with friends, going to the mall, bar, club, whatever, studying/having for a big test, getting your driver's license, etc. There's a lot of "events" crammed into a 4-5 year period from the ages of 15-20 that make those years feel like an entire life.

I recall the 10-12 years between me graduating middle school and me getting married feeling like they last 50 years.

Like the saying goes, "The days are long, but the years are short".

Best way to combat that is to do something different at least one day a week to break up the routine. Even if it's something as simple as a bike ride or a walk in the park.

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Realty Hit!

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Shablagoo posted...

I think part of it is also that when youre 10, one year is a whole 10% of your life so it seems longer than a year does when youre 50 because a year then is only 2% of your life.

Also the amount of things you encounter that will get added to long term memory drastically decreases, so you end up with a lot less memories of stuff throughout a given year. Just the big things. If even that.

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This global pandemic certainly didn't help things. I still can't believe it's almost 2022 already.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SNgyEmYyQF4

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Shablagoo posted...

I think part of it is also that when youre 10, one year is a whole 10% of your life so it seems longer than a year does when youre 50 because a year then is only 2% of your life.

I think this is a huge part of it.

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In my 40's and 2007 was yesterday.

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Solar_Crimson posted...

Yes, this is natural.

It's believed to be because as you get older, you have less developmental milestones compared to when you were younger.

Every new moment is also a smaller portion of your total life than the moment before it was at the time.

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School was long and hard for me in the later years of secondary school and A-Levels. The maths, physics was a huge jump and had to really do actual homework plus mock exam papers to keep up. Also took double business studies which had like 6 topics per year? Each requiring massive 10-15k word coursework.

So once i got into university it was easy again and time absolutely flew.

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yes the first 19 years of my life never seemed to end, and thank goodness they finally did. I hated being a kid.