One more reason to dislike getting older.
When we were younger, it felt like a whole week lasted forever. Now that we’re older though, days, weeks, and months just pass by like a blur. Science finally has an answer as to why time flies as we get older. According to a new study published in the journal European Review, physics is actually the answer to this long-standing question.
Adrian Bejan, a professor of mechanical engineering at Duke University who authored the study, says that our sense of time is affected by the rate at which changes in mental images are perceived. As we grow older, this rate decreases due to a variety of factors, including changes in physical features such as vision and brain complexity, and later on, the degradation of neural pathways that transmit the information.
In terms of vision, this can be explained by eye movements called “saccadic eye movement.” Saccades can be defined as the “unconscious, jerk-like eye movements” that occur multiple times in a single second. Fixation periods happen between these saccades, and that’s when the brain processes all visual information received. Younger children tend to have shorter fixation periods than adults, which makes it seem like more things are happening. This makes it seem like time goes more slowly.
“The present is different from the past because the mental viewing has changed, not because somebody’s clock rings,” Bejan writes in the study. “The ‘clock time’ that unites all the live flow systems, animate and inanimate, is measurable. The day-night period lasts 24 hours on all watches, wall clocks and bell towers. Yet, physical time is not mind time. The time that you perceive is not the same as the time perceived by another.”
