Where the heck did last year go?

As we get older, the years seem to fly past faster and faster – why is that? Assoc Prof Olivier Piguet explains this phenomenon.

OlivierOn New Year’s Day this year, Assoc Prof Olivier Piguet appeared on ABC radio to chat with breakfast presenter Dan Ilic about that curious feeling we often get as we grow older, that each passing year seems to flash by faster and faster.

“What happens is that how we measure time internally affects how we remember a certain time period,” Olivier said. “In general we tend to remember things that are novel, unusual or that are really emotionally charged, things that are very meaningful to us. As a child, everything is novel or emotionally loaded, so there is all this discovery of the world that children have. As we grow older things become slightly less unusual, less novel and less emotionally charged. They become a bit more mundane and we tend to forget some of these things, therefore time seems to go faster.”

So, how can we slow down time and make it stretch out like it once did in childhood?  Listen to the interview below to find out Assoc Prof Piguet’s advice.

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