Has it really Been that Long? Why Time Seems to Speed up with Age

Abstract

The impression that time speeds up with age is a well known phenomenon. In the literature, a number of theories on this age effect exists, but results of the respective studies are inconclusive, and even somewhat paradoxical: The age effect occurred only when speed of time was judged for periods in the past. However, usually no difference was found when comparing present time perception between participants in different age groups. Our investigation had two aims: To begin, we tried to solve the riddle of this paradox. We contend that a context of comparison is needed for the age effect to occur, that is, a comparison of present time perception with the perception in previous life periods. The second aim was to compare potential causes of the age effect. Participants in a large sample (n = 517) covering a wide age range (20–80 years) provided time judgments and its potential predictors for both current and previous life periods. No age effect was found for speed of time in current life if only age was used as a predictor. If, however, other factors were statistically controlled for, a weak but noticeable age effect was found. Consistent with prior results, a clear age effect was obtained when participants compared different life periods retrospectively. Perceived time pressure and the number of routines are important factors of time perception both in current and previous life periods. A decreasing frequency of new life experiences seems to explain only the age effect of retrospective time perception.

Laypeople’s Beliefs Affect their Reports about the Subjective Experience of Time

“…Although it was not a study goal, we found that the two different ratings of time passage did not correlate with age. The low number of middle-aged and older adults (N = 52) makes this finding unreliable, but it is important to note that it is consistent with the literature that has shown with both WEIRD (Friedman & Janssen, 2010;Winkler et al, 2017;Wittmann & Lehnhoff, 2005) and non-WEIRD (Janssen et al, 2013) samples that, unless one uses ten-year intervals, there is no relation between age and the subjective experience of time in cross-sectional comparisons.…”

“…One explanation that is sometimes mentioned in the literature (Joubert, 1983;Quinn & Reznikoff, 1985;Winkler et al, 2017) and twice in the survey was that older adults feel that they are running out of time. Another belief about the cause of the phenomenon was that older adults focus more on the past and reflecting upon the past makes time feel like it has passed quickly.…”

“…When people are asked to compare time passage in the present with time passage in the past, they tend to indicate that there has been a large increase, suggesting that life has speed up as they have become older (i.e., Baum, Boxley, & Sokolowski, 1984;Gallant, Fidler, & Dawson, 1991;Joubert, 1983Joubert, , 1984Joubert, , 1990Lemlich, 1975;Tuckman, 1965;Walker, 1977). However, when time passage in the present is compared across groups of young, middle-aged and older adults on intervals, like the previous week, month or year, there are hardly any age differences (Friedman & Janssen, 2010;Janssen, Naka, & Friedman, 2013;Winkler et al, 2017;Wittmann & Lehnhoff, 2005). Only when the passage of time is compared on extremely long intervals, such as the previous 10 years, age differences are observed.…”

“…Many theories have been proposed in the literature to explain the phenomenon (see Table 1), with several accounts relating the phenomenon to age and aging. First, a decrease in the number of memorable events in older age has been proposed as an explanation (Fraisse, 1963(Fraisse, , 1984Guyau, 1890;James, 1890;Landau, Arndt, Swanson, & Bultmann, 2018;Winkler et al, 2017). For instance, James (1890) suggested that life in late adulthood has more routines and fewer unique events as compared to childhood.…”

“…For example, when a person cannot recall any events from the last month, they might have the feeling that the month passed quickly. Third, time pressure explanation argues that feelings of being busy and not having enough time to complete tasks are related to the experience of time (Friedman & Janssen, 2010;Janssen et LAYPEOPLE'S BELIEFS AND THEIR TIME EXPERIENCE REPORTS -5 al., 2013;Winkler et al, 2017). People are able to recall many instances of recent time pressure but fewer instances of time pressure in the past, which leads to the feeling that time is passing faster in the present than in the past (Janssen, 2017).…”