Counting Meaning, Not Moments: Our Perception of Time as We Age

Historic astronomical clock with intricate gold detailing, zodiac signs, and Roman numerals symbolizing the complexity of time keeping

When we are in our youth, the possibilities seem endless. So much to learn and do with all the time you’ll ever have to do it. A sense of “immortality” is present in most of our youth, making time feel endless for them. As they enter adulthood, they begin to make more educated goals focused on self-fulfillment rather than curiosity, realizing their time to explore everything might not be infinite after all (Giasson, Liao, & Carstensen, 2018). Every day now carries purpose and importance, time becomes a sacred resource, and its passing feels fleeting. The sense of urgency in adulthood as our perception of the rest of our time to accomplish our objectives becomes smaller, plays a role in reframing how we quantify time. As the time remaining to complete our goals decreases, our perception of the speed of time’s passing increases (Giasson, Liao, & Carstensen, 2018). 

DOES TIME GO BY FASTER AS WE agE?

An initial popularized theory to the concept that as we age time goes by faster was that time feels faster when we are older because our lives are full of routine. The idea hypothesized that the act of doing the same thing everyday leaves less novel events in our lives and makes it feel as though we didn’t do that many things and yet years have passed. However, Ryu et al. (2024) propose a different theory: as you get older, you choose to focus your time on goals that ensure self-fulfillment and during periods of growth and accomplishment, people perceive time as having “flown” by. Rather than explain the idea that time feels like its speeding up as we get older via the notion that we perceive time by quantifying the number of new events that happened, Ryu et al. (2024) explore the idea that it is not the number of events that matter, but rather how meaningful they were. Their research found that when they asked people to recall periods of their lives that had clear goals and experienced achievement, they became more nostalgic about it and often referred to the period as having passed quickly (Ryu, Landau, Arnold, & Arndt, 2024). 

positive feedback loop

Furthermore, Giasson et al. (2018), propose the idea of a “positive feedback loop” that explores the possibility that as we get older and feel our time is running out, the more meaningful of goals we set. As we complete these goals our lives are filled with achievement and we recall these periods as though they flew by and realize that now we have even less time to complete our goals, making us pick more fulfilling goals - etc.

There is also a biological reason as to why as we get older we perceive time as having passed a lot quicker. As a side effect of aging, we have less rapid eye movement, and as a result a person will have fewer mental images per unit of time than someone in their youth (Bejan, 2019). Fewer mental images means there is less to process and remember, making each second feel a lot faster and uneventful than someone creating stronger memories and recalling a lot of information from the same unit of time (Bejan, 2019). Although studying a different topic, Bae et al. (2022) study of how rapid eye movements are related with balance ability also found that in older individuals SEM, or saccadic eye movements, are decreased.

This theory perhaps contradicts the goal-setting theory, its basis arguing that because we aren’t recalling information with the same strength, events are less likely to be meaningful and are more forgettable. These then forgettable events make the time period feel as though nothing significant has happened and this absence of novel events makes the time feel shorter. 

A classic hourglass with vibrant red sand steadily trickles down, symbolizing the passage of time

FINAL INSIGHTS ON TIME

What was interesting about all of the studies I researched was how time was always quantified in hindsight. People were asked to recall how long a period of time felt in the past, perhaps biased by nostalgia and seemingly lack of time in the future. Meaningful experiences might feel as though they passed by fast in hindsight because they are fond memories, but could those same periods of learning and growth have felt hard and long in the present? Perhaps a future study could be comparing people’s perception of the length of meaningful events in their life before, during, and after they have happened. This could give insight into how people view the length of meaningful events not just in hindsight but also before they have happened and while they are happening.

Written by Elizabeth Gayhart and edited by Aldrin Gomes, PhD

References:

Giasson, H. L., Liao, H.-W., & Carstensen, L. L. (2018). Counting down while time flies: Implications of age-related time acceleration for goal pursuit across adulthood. Current Opinion in Psychology, 26, 85–89. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.copsyc.2018.07.001 

Ryu, Y.-J., Landau, M. J., Arnold, S. E., & Arndt, J. (2024). Why life moves fast: Exploring the mechanisms behind autobiographical time perception. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1177/01461672241285270

Bejan, A. (2019). Why the Days Seem Shorter as We Get Older. European Review, 27(2), 187–194. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1062798718000741 

Bae, Y., Lee, J., & Kim, H. (2022). Decreased saccadic eye movement speed correlates with balance ability in older adults. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 19(13), 7842. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph19137842