Why Does Time Feel Like It Speeds Up As We Age?

Imagine you are seven years old. One year feels like forever because almost everything is new for the first time. Your brain has to record every detail of your first day at school, first bike ride, and first snowfall. These many new memories pack together to make that single year feel long.

Now you are thirty. You do the same things every day: work, eat, sleep. Because these days look similar to each other, your brain saves effort by not recording them in high detail. When you look back at that last year, it seems short because there were fewer unique moments to remember.

As we get older, each new year becomes a smaller slice of our total life. One year is fifty percent of your life when you are two, but only three percent when you are thirty. This makes time feel like it is speeding up. It is not that the clock changes; it is how much stuff fits into that slice.