Does time go faster the more you age? Exploring the psychology and science

Oct 16, 2025 3 min read •

Psychology Aging Cognitive Science

According to psychologist and author Steve Taylor, the experience of time speeding up with age is extremely common, often due to having fewer new experiences and our perception becoming less vivid. While a day remains 24 hours long, our subjective sense of its passing can feel faster and faster the older we get. Exploring the deeper science and psychology behind the question, "Does time go faster the more you age?" reveals several compelling theories.

Quick Summary

The sensation that time accelerates with age is a common cognitive phenomenon influenced by several factors, including the brain’s rate of processing new information, changes in memory encoding, and the novelty of our experiences.

Key Points

Time is Relative: While clock time is constant, our subjective experience of its passage is flexible and changes with age and experience.
The Proportional Theory Explains Perspective: As we age, each year represents a smaller proportion of our total life, which makes it feel shorter and faster.
Novelty Slows Time: When we're young, new experiences are abundant, causing the brain to form dense memories that make time feel longer in retrospect.
Routine Compresses Time: Repetitive, familiar activities require less cognitive attention, so the brain encodes them with less detail, making them seem shorter.
Brain Processing Speed Matters: With age, neural pathways can degrade, causing a slower processing rate of sensory information and fewer mental images per unit of time, which contributes to the feeling of time speeding up.
Mindfulness and Newness are Remedies: Engaging in new hobbies, travel, or mindfulness can increase the "richness" of our experiences and help stretch our perception of time.

The Proportional Theory: Measuring Years in Fractions

One explanation for why time seems to speed up is the proportional theory. This theory posits that a unit of time, like a year, is perceived relative to the total time a person has lived. For a 10-year-old, a year is a substantial 10% of their life, while for a 50-year-old, it's just 2%. This diminishing proportion makes a year feel like a smaller, faster segment as we age.

The Novelty Effect: From Firsts to Familiarity

Younger years are filled with new experiences that are richly encoded into memory. These novel events require more attention and create a sense of time passing slowly in retrospect. As we age, life often becomes more routine with fewer novel events, leading the brain to process repetitive experiences more efficiently and store them with less detail. This makes time feel compressed when looking back. This is similar to the "holiday paradox," where a new experience feels long, but routine time feels fast.

Cognitive Processing Speed and the Aging Brain

Another theory connects the subjective acceleration of time to changes in the brain. Adrian Bejan suggests that as we age, the rate at which our brains process new mental images slows down. This is possibly due to physical changes like the degradation of neural pathways, which slows signal transmission. With fewer new mental images processed per unit of time, the brain perceives less "mind time," causing clock time to feel faster. The world isn't faster, but our brain's processing of it is slower.

Children: Faster neural processing creates more mental images per unit of time, making time feel slower.
Adults: Slower processing creates fewer mental images, making the same clock time feel shorter retrospectively.

Comparison of Time Perception Theories

To understand the different explanations, let's compare some of the key theories side-by-side.


Theory	Core Concept	Effect in Youth	Effect in Old Age
Proportional Theory	Perceived length of time is relative to total lifespan.	A year is a large percentage of life, feeling long.	A year is a small percentage of life, feeling short.
Novelty Effect	Novel experiences are richly encoded; repetitive ones are not.	Many new experiences create dense memories, stretching time perception.	Repetitive routines create fewer memories, compressing time perception.
Cognitive Processing	Rate of processing new information slows with age.	Faster processing creates more mental images, making time feel slower.	Slower processing creates fewer mental images, making time feel faster.
Memory Encoding	Time is judged retrospectively by memory density.	Many detailed memories make a period seem longer upon reflection.	Fewer distinct memories make a period seem to fly by.

Can You Slow Down Time?

While objective time is constant, we can influence our subjective perception by increasing novelty and mindfulness.

Pursue New Experiences: Engaging in new activities increases attention and creates richer memories, which can make time feel longer.
Practice Mindfulness: Being present in the moment can slow down perceived time by increasing the information processed.
Break Your Routine: Small changes can disrupt the brain's tendency to compress familiar events.
Engage All Your Senses: Focusing on sensory details enriches memories and makes experiences feel longer.

Conclusion

The feeling that time speeds up with age is a common cognitive phenomenon influenced by psychological and biological factors. These include the proportional theory, which states that each year is a smaller fraction of your total life as you age, the novelty effect, where fewer new experiences lead to less detailed memories, and changes in cognitive processing speed. By actively seeking novelty and practicing mindfulness, we can create richer memories and expand our subjective experience of time. The goal is to fill time with more meaningful and memorable moments.

Frequently Asked Questions

Yes, the sensation that time passes more quickly as one gets older is a very common and widely reported phenomenon across cultures and individuals. While the degree to which it is felt can vary, the underlying psychological and cognitive mechanisms are thought to affect most people.

You can influence your subjective perception of time. While you can't change the actual rate of time, by incorporating new experiences, practicing mindfulness, and breaking routine, you can create more memorable moments that make a period of time feel longer in retrospect.

Yes, a significant role. The density and vividness of our memories for a given period strongly influence our retrospective judgment of its duration. Periods rich with new, highly detailed memories, like childhood, feel longer, whereas routine periods with fewer distinct memories feel shorter.

The proportional theory suggests that the perceived length of a time period, such as a year, is judged relative to the total time you have lived. For a young child, a year is a large percentage of their life, while for an older adult, it's a much smaller fraction, diminishing its perceived length.

Yes, some theories suggest biological changes in the brain contribute. A researcher at Duke University proposed that as we age, the physical degradation of neural pathways slows the rate at which our brains process new mental images, which can cause clock time to feel like it's passing faster.

The novelty effect explains that new and unusual experiences cause our brains to pay more attention and encode richer memories, making a period feel longer. Since childhood is full of new experiences, it feels slower, while the routine nature of adult life offers less novelty and thus feels faster.

When you are actively paying attention to the passage of time (a prospective judgment), it tends to feel like it's taking longer. Conversely, when you are distracted or absorbed in an activity, time seems to fly by. However, when looking back on a fun, engaging event (a retrospective judgment), it is often remembered as feeling slow and expansive due to richer memories.

References

Medical Disclaimer

This content is for informational purposes only and should not replace professional medical advice. Always consult a qualified healthcare provider regarding personal health decisions.