2016

A warm, vivid morning. Vibrant slimes on sale, neon fidget spinners spinning between restless fingers, Pokémon Go crowds clustering around random street corners, kids bottle flipping and dabbing everywhere. Hot summers in the waterpark and beach with blasting pop music and melting ice cream felt infinite, and the sandy playground after a long school day felt like paradise. The world seemed more glowy, the scent of the air was sweet, time moved slowly and kindly.

Wake up, it’s 2026!

One day, we are counting down the minutes until lunch, praying for the clock to tick faster; the next, entire months disappear before we’ve even processed what happened. It’s as if someone fast-forwarded our lives without asking. Weekdays blur, weekends evaporate, and suddenly you’re looking back at a whole semester that feels present but is already past. 

As it turns out, everyone around us feels it too; we all experience an unsettling sense that time is playing tag with us, running away from sight whenever we almost catch a glimpse of it. This unsettles us, because we remember some of our childhood memories vividly; we used to feel every minute. Now, our months are jumbled up, barely felt and remembered. So what exactly flipped the switch on time? Why does growing up make everything move faster, and why does it seem like our teenage years, the ones adults said would be “slow and golden”, are the very years speeding past us the quickest? 

In fact, there is a psychological explanation for this rapid ticking of time, and it begins with how our brains handle newness of the environment. When we are younger, nearly everything we encounter feels unfamiliar. New classrooms, new teachers, new rules, and meeting new people need constant attention. Because the brain has to work harder to understand and categorize these new experiences, it forms more detailed, long-lasting memories. This makes time feel slower and fuller. For instance, the first day at a new school could feel endless, not because it lasted longer, but because our minds were actively absorbing every moment, alert to the fact that the environment around us had changed. 

However, as we grow older, life shifts into patterns and routines. School schedules repeat, weekdays blend together, and routines become settled. The brain, recognizing these patterns, stops treating each day as something worth closely observing and remembering. Rather, it compresses time into familiarity. When we look back, entire weeks or months feel like they because our minds did not mark them as distinct, fresh experiences. Time itself hasn’t sped up; our recognition of newness has shrunk, quietly and almost without us noticing.

The sensation of time speeding up is not only psychological; it is also biological. As we age, the speed at which our neurons, the human nerve cells, fire and transmit information gradually slows. This reduces the amount of sensory information the brain can process in a given moment. With fewer sensory details being captured, experiences feel lighter and briefer. In contrast, younger people’s brains absorb vast amounts of sensory input, such as sounds and colors, emotions and physical sensations. This richness of information makes time feel longer and more vivid, as if our ability to capture time and memory has increased. 

Additionally, recent research in cognitive psychology and neuroscience supports and extends the idea that memory is strongly influenced by attention and by brain mechanisms of memory formation. Contemporary studies by Nature’s Scientific Research show that how long time feels depends on attention and degree of engagement, meaning that more attention to information lengthens memory duration while distraction shortens it. 

Moreover, neuroimaging and meta-analytic evidence by LiveScience identify specific brain regions, particularly the insular cortex and supplementary motor area, that integrate internal bodily signals with sensory and cognitive information to construct the sense of the flow of time. This evidence highlights that memory duration depends not only on external influences but also on internal behaviors and attentional focus. Overall, modern research highlights that memory is created by how actively the brain processes, responds to, and stores information, with both memory formation and attention span shaping the duration of time more than the clock does. 

Also, the concept of proportional time explains why years seem to shrink as we get older. For a child, one year represents a large portion of their entire life. For a teenager or an adult, that same year becomes just another small part of the long, continuous life. Each new year feels shorter because it occupies less mental space compared to everything that happened in the past. In other words, when slower neural processing is combined with routine-heavy lifestyles, time doesn’t just feel faster. Instead, it feels like it’s constantly slipping out of reach. 

So how can we extract the most of this time that is slipping through our fingers? Although we can’t control the clock’s rapid ticking, we can change how time feels by changing how we live inside it. One of the most effective ways to slow time down is through expanding experiences; being new. New experiences force the brain to pay attention, whether that means learning a new hobby, visiting an unfamiliar place, or even breaking small routines. When our brain is engaged, it records more memories, and time feels fuller when we look back on it. For example, rather than always meeting your friends at the same cafe, imagine exploring a new neighborhood together, visiting new restaurants, or planning a short but memorable trip. Even if the time spent is the same, the unfamiliar setting and side quests create stronger, more detailed memories. Later, that single afternoon stands out clearly than ever for you to cherish even when time slips by. 

Mindfulness also plays a crucial role. Many of us rush through days, waiting for the next break or the next weekend, barely noticing the present moment. When we live like this, time seems to vanish because we are never fully there to experience it. In fact, slowing down in life doesn’t mean doing less; it means noticing and cherishing more: conversations, sounds, emotions, and details that are usually forgotten. Interestingly, the more present we become, the longer life feels, even if time itself keeps moving at the same pace. 

Time doesn’t ask to be cherished; it just keeps walking like a quiet passerby in a big crowd. It doesn’t slow down for our nostalgia, nor does it wait for us to make sense of it. Growing up doesn’t steal time from us; instead, it challenges us to live life with the fullest intentions. In the end, time only feels like it’s running away when we forget to run with it in the moment, instead of letting it disappear from a distance.