Does Time Really Fly?

There are moments when time can race or drag interminably; on rare occasions, it feels as if it’s standing still. But why?

12:27 27 July 2015

While nobody can argue that one minute is composed of 60 seconds and one hour is made up of 60 minutes, the perception of time can vary dramatically from person to person and from one situation to the next.

 

The proportional theory posits that as people age, their sense of present time begins to feel relatively short so a year feels significantly shorter when compared to childhood.

 

Humans, as theories suggest, possess an internal timepiece, which regulates human’s circadian rhythms that allow people to register the duration of particular events. This is used as “pacemaker” to compare the length of each new event with representations stored in memory. However, human’s internal pacemaker doesn’t always keep time as accurately as our external gadgets.

 

When we are pre-occupied and doing multi-tasking, it will feel that the time pass by much more swiftly. This is because we pay less attention to the flow of time during these times. However, when we are feeling depressed, sad, or beaten, it feels that time is passing more slowly. Such negative emotional stress as well as fear slow down our internal clock so events connected with these emotions are perceived as lasting longer.