Why does time seem to speed up as you get older?
Scientists aren’t sure, but a leading idea is memory. New experiences leave more memories, so busy, novel years feel long, while routine years blur together and seem to fly by.
Quick Answer
Many people feel the years speed up as they age, and research backs up the feeling, at least for long stretches. In a 2005 survey of 499 people aged 14 to 94 in Germany and Austria, psychologists Marc Wittmann and Sandra Lehnhoff found no age difference in how fast the past week, month or year seemed to go. But older people felt the past decade had passed faster. Why? No one knows for sure, but there are a few leading ideas. One is memory: new experiences create lots of memories, so a year full of firsts feels long looking back, while routine years leave fewer memories and seem shorter. Another is proportion: at 10, a year is a tenth of your life; at 50, it’s a fiftieth. And in 2019, Duke University engineer Adrian Bejan proposed that our brains process images more slowly as we age, though that idea is still debated.
By the Numbers
Key Facts
- Short answer
- No one knows for sure, but memory is a leading explanation
- What studies found
- Older people feel the last decade went faster
- What didn’t change
- How fast the last week, month or year felt
- A way to slow it
- New experiences may make time feel fuller looking back
Three ideas about why time speeds up
| The idea | How strong is it? | |
|---|---|---|
| Memory | Routine years leave fewer new memories, so they seem shorter looking back | Widely discussed by researchers |
| Proportion | Each year is a smaller share of your life | Simple, but ignores what fills the years |
| Image processing | The aging brain processes images more slowly (Bejan, 2019) | A newer proposal, still debated |
What the survey found
Wittmann and Lehnhoff asked 499 people how quickly the last week, month, year and decade had passed. For the shorter spans, older and younger people answered about the same. Only for the decade did older people say time had moved faster.
Memory makes time
When we look back, we judge how long a period lasted partly by how many memories it left. Childhood and early adulthood are packed with firsts. Later years often fall into routines that blur together, so they can seem to have passed quickly.
An old observation
The feeling isn’t new. In 1890, psychologist William James wrote that the same space of time seems shorter as we grow older. In 2019, Adrian Bejan offered a physics-based idea: that as the brain ages, it takes in fewer mental images per day, so days seem to go faster.
Myth vs. Fact
MythTime really does move faster as you age.
FactClock time is the same. Only our sense of how long periods lasted changes.
MythOlder people feel every day rushing by.
FactIn the 2005 survey, age made no difference for a week, a month or a year. The effect showed up for the past decade.
The Bottom Line
Time seems to speed up with age mostly when we look back over long stretches. A leading explanation is memory: routine years leave fewer new memories, so they seem to pass faster.
Sources & Further Reading
- Scientific American — Why Does Time Seem to Speed Up with Age?
- Psychological Reports — Wittmann & Lehnhoff, Age Effects in Perception of Time (2005)
- European Review — Bejan, Why the Days Seem Shorter as We Get Older (2019)
- ScienceDaily — It’s spring already? Physics explains why time flies as we age (2019)