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# Why Does Time Seem to Pass Faster as We Get Older?
- URL: https://www.altiusjournal.com/why-time-seems-to-pass-faster-as-we-get-older/
- Published: 2026-10-26T12:04:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-26T12:03:59.000Z
- Description: Ask older and younger adults how fast the last week went and their answers are surprisingly similar. The difference appears when they look back over a decade.
- Author: Giani Boldeanu
- Tags: Psychology, ALTIUS Aha, Time Perception

A childhood summer could seem almost endless. Years later, an entire season can disappear between two appointments, and you wonder how it can possibly be autumn again.

Before reading on, guess: does a 70-year-old feel that last week flew by faster than a 20-year-old does? Here is the surprise. When researchers ask people how fast the last week, month or year has gone, older and younger adults give remarkably similar answers. In a study comparing students with an average age of 21 and adults with an average age of 68, most people in both groups felt that time was moving quickly. The one clear difference appeared when they looked back over a whole decade, and even there the effect was small.

**The short answer:** for weeks, months and even single years, older and younger adults feel time passing at much the same speed. The difference appears when we look back over a decade, and how full a stretch of life looks in memory depends on how many distinct moments it holds.

## The day and the memory of the day

That finding points to an important distinction. There is how long an interval feels while we are living it, and there is how long it seems when we look back. Researchers treat these as different judgements, and they need not agree. An afternoon in a dull waiting room can feel painfully slow and leave almost nothing to remember a month later. A busy holiday can rush past and yet seem rich and long in retrospect because so much of it stands out.

When people say the years are speeding up, they may be describing the remembered length of the past rather than the felt speed of each hour. Memories are not recordings of elapsed minutes. They are selective accounts of experiences, changes and events.

Picture a photo album. A fortnight of travel can fill fifty pages; three months of ordinary weeks might fill two. When you flip back through the year, the thin months seem to have lasted no time at all, not because they were short, but because there is so little in them to look at.

## Why age is not the whole story

Childhood is full of first experiences: new places, unfamiliar rules, changing friendships. Adult life often becomes more regular, as the commute repeats and one week resembles the next. It is tempting to conclude that childhood feels slower simply because it is packed with memorable events. Yet the same age study found little support for that classic idea as an explanation of speed. Landmarks may not explain why the years feel fast, but they do change how full a year looks when you look back, and that part you can influence.

Age also matters less than circumstances. Two adults of the same age can experience time very differently, especially during periods of change, illness, travel or intense learning. A year that contains a new language or a move to a new city may feel long in retrospect; a year of routine may seem to have slipped away.

This may help explain a familiar complaint at New Year. A year can feel as if it vanished precisely because so much of it was spent doing things well and repeatedly: commuting, working, caring, coping. Competence is efficient, and efficient days leave light footprints.

## The season that vanished

Think of a long sporting season. The weeks of travel, recovery and repeated preparation blur together, while the cup run, the comeback from injury and the first start stay sharp and detailed. Looking back, the whole season is remembered through those few landmarks. The routine made the performance possible; the landmarks made it memorable.

## Try this today: the Three-Line Week

At the end of this week, write a Three-Line Week: what surprised you, what you learned and the moment you would most like to remember. It takes two minutes. It will not make the week longer, but it gives memory something to hold. Small departures from routine help too, such as a different walking route, a new skill or a conversation outside your usual circle. There is no need to turn life into an exhausting hunt for novelty; familiar routines are not wasted time. Some of the best years of a life are made of exactly those routines; they simply need a few markers along the way.

> Time moves at the same rate. What changes is the story we are able to tell about where it went.

## ALTIUS Note

The age comparison involved 99 people, and research on time perception remains unsettled: findings about seconds and minutes cannot simply be applied to years. The weekly reflection is an editorial suggestion, not a tested method for changing how fast time feels.

## Research References

- Friedman, W. J. & Janssen, S. M. J. (2010). Aging and the speed of time. *Acta Psychologica*, 134(2), 130–141\. [https://doi.org/10.1016/j.actpsy.2010.01.004](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.actpsy.2010.01.004?ref=altiusjournal.com)
- Block, R. A. & Zakay, D. (1997). Prospective and retrospective duration judgments: A meta-analytic review. *Psychonomic Bulletin & Review*, 4(2), 184–197\. [https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03209393](https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03209393?ref=altiusjournal.com)

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