Why does time go by faster as we get older?

Question

Everybody agrees that, as you get older, you feel that time goes by quicker. Why is that? I once read that it had to do with body temperature, because as we get older, body temperature changes. Any scientific theory that you know of?

Answer 1

Ahh, no, it's got nothing to do with body temperature.

It's because of the way we subjectively measure time. We measure time relative to the time we've been alive (or, perhaps, to the time we remember being alive).

That's why two years seem like a very long time to a 4 year old - for a 4 year old, two years is one half of his entire life! For an 80 year old, however, two years is only 1/40th of his entire life, and so feels like a shorter amount of time.

Answer 2

Because as you get older, you realize how very, very much wonder there is in the world, and how very little of it you have actually experienced.

There no longer seems to be "forever" to learn everything you want to know, and you can look back and see how many important things you've wondered about and never took the time to learn.

The funny thing is, they are often the same things you wondered when you were five! Why does a housefly look iridescent in the sun? How come food coloring dropped into the whirlpool in the pool where the hose is filling it forms walls and an eye instead of dissipating? How come the stars are so far away? How do they find oil, or make cans, or launch the space shuttle?

But, knowing we no longer have "forever," I think the luckiest among us begin to find the answers. And when I'm learning something that amazes me, time slows down, and I feel forever again in the connection to all of those before and after me who were and will be awed by the wonderful in the things around us.

I have yet to see the Hoover Dam, or explore an offshore rig, so I'd better hurry.

Answer 3

I think it has a lot to do with that saying, "Been there; done that". A bit of boredom sets in after a while since you've seen a few sunrises and sunsets and Springs and Autumns and butterflies and daisies and "bubbling brooks", and no matter how wonderful life is, the longer you been here, the more commonplace it seems, and so we accept these events as norms, and we get bored by them a bit, and we quit paying attention to them so much, and the level of activity in our lives pick up, what with raising kids and working and paying bills, and we can't afford to be "clock watchers" any more. And then, one day, one instant, we stop, if just for a milisecond, and turn away from our televisions and stereos, and realize what time it is, and that sudden change of velocity in our living startles our awarenesses, and then we realize how long it's been since we last looked at the clock, and we wonder, where did all the time go?! And then we realize just how "fast" time has been going. It hasn't been going faster. We have, and we forgot to stop and smell the flowers and enjoy the bubbling brook and see the joy in a sunrise and a sunset, or the birds around our house or the bunny rabbits coming and going from the woods to our house and back again, or the hummingbirds that flitter all around your garden areas, and your feeders. Stop and smell the flowers, and see just how slow time really goes, and you'll feel "in touch" and at peace all over again. God Bless you.

Answer 4

Time is a relative term. Why does it feel much longer when we are driving TO some place whereas the same drive feels much shorter on the way back?? As we get older, we think we don't have much time left so it feels as though it is going by faster. Time remains constant. There is no theory that supports that. Just fact.

Answer 5

Extton has your answer for you. I also worked this out (several years ago).

Our sense of time passing is based on our experience with time.

There are 525600 minutes in a year. A child aged five has experienced 2682000 minutes. If we assume a five year old experiences a minute as "a minute" then a child of ten (with twice as many minutes of experience) will experience that minute the same way a child of five would experience 30 seconds (the ratio of time passed vs time lived is the same).

Thus, a fifty year old telling a child of five to wait "five minutes" is like asking the fifty year old to wait "fifty minutes". Conversely, the "five minutes" to a fifty year old is equivalent to a five year old waiting 30 seconds.

This explains why the older we get, the faster time seems to fly. It also helps to explain the impatience of youth.

Answer 6

I think this perception is somehow linked to our long-term memory and how we relate to our past experiences as we grow older. Have you ever noticed how a memory of a special event from our distant past may seem like it happened only a short time ago? As we age we accumulate more and more of these old memories, each one of which seems like it happened just the other day. Perhaps this is what makes us feel as if time is passing by much faster as we age.

Answer 7

As a kid, you don't have to work hours a day, or do laundry, or pay bills and mail them, or drive people around, or have 'hobbies', or serious romantic relationships that demand time, or cook your own food and shop at the supermarket, etc, etc...

If you think about it, that is why time goes by faster when you grow up.

Answer 8

Because the amount of new experiences you experience is tiny when you are older compared to when you were younger when everything was new.

Ever had a item so long you don't notice it anymore?

Answer 9

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Answer 10

I'm in with extton on this one. I simply refer to it as the "Theory of Lifespan Ratio"!