When you’re a kid, the summers seem to last forever. As you get older, you’re amazed that “it’s summer already,” and soon enough, you can’t believe “it’s the fall again.” It’s a cruel trick of life, is that as you slow down, time speeds up. Why does time seem to move faster as we get older?
Our perception of time is fluid, either contracting or expanding. For most people, it contracts as we age because we imprint fewer experiences in our memories. We’ve seen a lot, and it is hard to be surprised. “Time is this rubbery thing,” says neuroscientist David Eagleman. “It stretches out when you really turn your brain resources on, and when you say, ‘Oh, I got this, everything is as expected,’ it shrinks up.”
David Eagleman is an American neuroscientist, author, and science communicator who teaches neuroscience at Stanford University.
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“This is why you lay down fewer memories as you age: You’ve seen that situation before, you’ve met that personality before, you’ve done that job before. The memories you lay down are much thinner. They’re more impoverished,” Eagleman says, according to Inc.