As young kids, most of us were in a hurry to grow up. Many were antsy to grow up and enjoy the freedoms adults had, and it felt like time moved at a snail’s pace.
But as we grew older, it suddenly felt like years zoomed by in ways we could no longer keep up with. Human development researcher Jamie Jirout has an explanation.
“When we are young, there is so much changing in what we know about the world, and the experiences we are having are so new, we don’t know what to expect,” Jirout said. “The experiences when you are 5 are much more likely to be new and require a lot more cognitive effort to process.”
Jirout adds that being young means you're not good at controlling attention or knowing what to focus on. As a result, you encode more details from your experiences than adults do.
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We all accumulate experiences as we grow old, which means we develop a better understanding of life and the world around us. According to Jirout, this leads to less novelty in our experiences, so we pay less attention to what is happening.
This is why, she says, time can feel like it passes much faster when we reach adulthood.
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That feeling of the years going by so quickly also has to do with how our brains interpret time. According to Queensland University of Technology psychology and counseling professor Hinze Hogendoorn, it’s because our brain estimates the passage of time through changes.
“Unlike a clock, the brain does not have regular ticks to count,” Hogendoorn wrote. “To infer how much time has passed, the brain simply adds up how much happened. If you fill a time interval with exciting stuff, it seems to last longer.”
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A routine can also make time pass more quickly, Hogendoorn says. Again, a lack of novel experiences comes into play, leaving less vivid memories.
“When our older brain therefore looks back to infer how much time has passed since the start of the year, it concludes that not much has happened, so it doesn’t feel very long ago,” he explained.
It’s likely safe to assume that everyone will jump at the chance to turn back the clock. But since time travel isn’t possible (yet), we can slow down time. Hogendoorn’s advice: just get bored.
To keep memories fresh, he says it’s all about rehashing every one through journaling or simply reminiscing. As he notes, “Keep your memories alive, and you’ll keep your past alive.”
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