Why time flies as we get older

The passage of time is a puzzling thing. While few will dispute that a minute comprises 60 seconds, the perception of time can vary dramatically from person to person. Photo / Thinkstock

Have you ever observed that time seems to be going by faster as you get older?

There's a reason that one summer seems to stretch out forever when you're a kid, but zips by before you know it when you're 30. That reason is perspective, as a gorgeous interactive visualisation, by Austrian designer Maximilian Kiener, demonstrates.

When you're 1 year old, a year is literally forever to you - it's all the time that you've ever known. But as you grow older, one year is a smaller and smaller fraction of your total life. It's like watching something shrink in your rear view mirror.

This idea has stunning implications. It means that parents actually see their children grow up much faster than children perceive themselves to be.

It means that waiting 24 days for Christmas at age 5 literally feels like waiting a year at age 54. It might also explain why kids on car trips are always asking that annoying question, "Are we there yet?" A car journey actually feels longer to kids than it does to adults.

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30

It's a simple concept, but the feeling is explained beautifully by Kiener's interactive: The interactive has you painstakingly scroll through each year, and experience how time seems to speed up as you "get older."

For example, when you are 1 year old, a year is 100 per cent of your life. As Kiener writes, this theory was first put forth by Paul Janet, a French philosopher, in 1897. But the proportion falls sharply as you age. As you scroll through the years, you notice that each year takes significantly less time to pass by than the first. By the time you're 8, a year is only 12.5 per cent of your life.

By 18, that proportion has fallen by half again. One year is now 5.56 per cent of your life. As Kiener writes, your summer vacation in your first year of college feels as long as your whole 76th year.

After 30, the proportion begins to level off, and each year of your life is similarly short. By the time you're 35, one year is 2.86 per cent of your life.

At 98, it's about 1 per cent.

Janet's idea is that we perceive time by comparing it with our life span: The apparent length of a period of time is proportional to our life span itself.

We perceive our first few years to be much longer in duration than the years that come later. If you measure your life this way, in "perceived" time rather than actual time, half of your "perceived life" is over by age 7. If you factor in the fact that you don't remember much of your first three years, then half of your perceived life is over by the time you turn 18, Kiener writes.

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