Which one makes time go faster as we get older?

Question

Having more things added to the 'to do list' that still aren't done...

or the relative length of a day for example as we simply live more units of time......(when we are very little a day takes up a larger % of our total life...as we age, an individual day is a smaller % of our life)

other

Answer 1

I think that as we age, we forget more, and time slips faster and we don't seem to notice it as much. When we're young time seems to go by much slower, our minds aren't as occupied as they are as we increase our responsibilities, and grow a conscience, and care for our surroundings as well as things that affect us indirectly.

Answer 2

'Whoever counts many lustra in his memory need only question himself to find that the last of these, the past five years, have sped much more quickly than the preceding periods of equal amount. Let any one remember his last eight or ten school years: it is the space of a century. Compare with them the last eight or ten years of life: it is the space of an hour.'
So writes Prof. Paul Janet (1823-1899; from 1864 professor of philosophy at the Sorbonne) [Revue Philosophique, vol. III. p. 496], and gives a solution which can hardly be said to diminish the mystery. There is a law, he says, by which the apparent length of an interval at a given epoch of a man's life is proportional to the total length of the life itself. A child of 10 feels a year as 1/10 of his whole life -- a man of 50 as 1/50, the whole life meanwhile apparently preserving a constant length. This formula roughly expresses the phenomena, it is true, but cannot possibly be an elementary psychic law; and it is certain that, in great part at least, the foreshortening of the years as we grow older is due to the monotony of memory's content, and the consequent simplification of the backward-glancing view. In youth we may have an absolutely new experience, subjective or objective, every hour of the day. Apprehension is vivid, retentiveness strong, and our recollections of that time, like those of a time spent in rapid and interesting travel, are of something intricate, multitudinous, and long-drawn-out. But as each passing year converts some of this experience into automatic routine which we hardly note at all, the days and the weeks smooth themselves out in recollection to contentless units, and the years grow hollow and collapse."

Answer 3

Time does not go faster as we grow older. It is all perception.

As we learn more and see more there will definitely be a bigger list of things we would like to do. The "I want to do this before I die" list will always be longer than it will be achievable.

It is true also that the more we experience the more we have to look back on, and the more likely we are to say "Where have all they years gone?"

The days are always too short. No matter what your age. It's always midnight before you know it.

Answer 4

The relative length of time is the culprit. When you ten years old, one year is a tenth of your life. Pretty big piece. When your 50, a year is one fiftieth. Much smaller piece.

Course that list gets longer too since they start to become desires and regrets of things not done along with all the other stuff you have to write down or you'll forget.

Answer 5

I'm old relatively speaking . Time for me is moving rapidly. I am trying to cram a lot of adventures into my final years but my life is actually quite lea surely. I do not rush or hurry. But I know I am running out of time. The problem is not with added tasks it is with my perception. I only have x years left or less

When I was 20 I had my whole life ahead of me.. waiting now I have my whole life behind me ... pushing.

The momentum of my life has changed. the future pulls and the past pushes.

Answer 6

Time does not change, but our perception of it does. Time is relative to its self. We as creatures of habit become more contemplative of our lives, being this methodical requires more time there by we perceive that time has moved faster; when actually it's moving at the same rate. We have just used more time to correctly complete a task, or action with less error.

Answer 7

People are so different. I know older people who feel the days are flying, & others for whom days drag on & on. & this doesn't necessarily have to do with the "to do list." The perception of time varies so much, even in children who think a school day is LOoong, or a day passed swiftly because they were having so much fun. I couldn't honestly choose between either regarding getting older. We are all so unique!

Answer 8

I'd go with the task list. Especially when kids get involved, the brain is far more attentively engaged than our younger years. Our perception of time is monitored by the Basal Ganglia. When we engage in tasks, the Basal Ganglia not only monitors the tasks but also our perception of time to achieve a task. When no tasks are being performed, Basal Ganglia has only time to monitor. This is usually when boredom sets in and time is perceived to pass more slowly. Put the Ganglia to work and the task of monitoring time becomes more difficult, and thus time passes by more quickly.

Answer 9

ahem.. i have an'other' answer...

it's like the rolling stone gathering speed as it travels downhill. the more it rolls, the faster it goes. of course this pre-supposes that neither moss nor diversions get in its path, but if it remains unimpeded, things will start to move at an astonishing rate. the last few years have become a blur, and the first years of life seem a far removed dream.

example... 1997 seems like 'just a little while ago' to me. but to someone whose stone has just begun to roll, that year might fall into the 'ancient history' category.

the year of my birth (1960s is good enough for our purposes) is a time i view in 'black and white', still shots of relatives and lakes and old cars. but for someone in their 80s, that time might be their best years, with everything vivid, musical, and moving at a furious clip. "how fast the dances were, how bright the dresses, how stirring the speeches.." they might reminisce. and they'd be right!

the passage of time makes time go faster. at the end, you won't even know you've left...

Answer 10

Time doesn't go faster when we get older, but it seems to go by more quickly because we have so much more to do and be responsible for. Not to mention that as an adult you have a better concept of what time really is.

Answer 11

According to your example it seems as though regular aging will speed up ones sensitivity to time. To the contrast, that darn "to do list" which seems to grow faster with time will absolutely slow down ones sensitivity of time to the tone of music that beats painfully and overwhelmingly slower then ones heart.