Where did the last ten years go?
Researchers Asked 499 People How Fast the Last 10 Years Had Gone. The Answer Sped Up With Age Until About 50, Then Held Steady.
Researchers asked 499 people how fast time felt. Short stretches felt the same at any age. A whole decade felt faster the older people were, up to about 50.
Ask anyone over fifty how long **ten years** feels, and you may hear the same thing: **it went by in a blink.** Ask about **last Tuesday,** and nobody says that.
In 2005, **Marc Wittmann and Sandra Lehnhoff** published a paper in **Psychological Reports** on exactly this. They asked **499 people** how fast time passes for them, and compared the answers by age.
It was not a study about stories or families. But it points at something every family knows: **the long years slip past, and the stories inside them go with them.**
1. What the researchers asked
The study used **questionnaires,** nothing more. **499 people,** from their teens to their nineties, rated how fast time seemed to pass **right now,** and how fast it had passed over **the last hour, the last week, the last month, and the last 10 years.**
They also asked people to choose **statements about time,** such as feeling **pressed for time.** Nobody was recorded or tested in a lab.
Simple questions, asked of 499 people of every age.
2. What they found
For **short stretches,** an hour, a week, a month, **age made no real difference.** For **the last 10 years,** the feeling that time had gone fast **grew with age, peaked around 50,** and then **stayed about the same** into the mid 90s.
The link was **weak.** Age explained **at most 10%** of the differences between people, and people of all ages said time felt quick. The authors tied the middle-age rush partly to **busy working and family years.** People between 20 and 59 more often chose the **time pressure** statements.
A week feels like a week. A decade is the one that gets away.
3. What it can and cannot tell us
This was **a survey of feelings,** not a measure of the clock, and it **did not study families or life stories.** Later researchers have asked whether **fading memories of old years** play a part, so the full answer is not settled.
What it gently suggests is simple. **A decade can feel like it vanished, and a story told out loud is one way to hold part of it.** Pick **one year** that went by too fast, and **tell it to someone who will keep it.** It is just a phone call.
The years may blur. A story told out loud stays put.
Age effects in perception of timeWittmann and Lehnhoff, Psychological Reports, 2005 (the title of the paper)
What you get with LifeScribe
- A 2005 paper by Marc Wittmann and Sandra Lehnhoff in Psychological Reports surveyed 499 people about the speed of time.
- For the last hour, week or month, perceived speed did not change with age.
- For the last 10 years, the feeling of speed rose with age, peaked around 50, and stayed level into the mid 90s.
- Age explained at most 10% of the differences between people, so the link was weak.
- It was a questionnaire study of feelings, not a test of families or life stories.
- Built on documented research: Psychological Reports 97(3), 921 to 935, DOI 10.2466/pr0.97.3.921-935.
Start free, with nothing to lose
Just a phone call, free. Ari listens with real interest and keeps your stories in your own voice for the people you love.
The next ten years will go by, too. Tell one year of the last ten before it blurs. It is just a phone call.
Tell one of the years that flew by.
Ari calls, asks about the moments that shaped you, and keeps your stories in your own voice for the people you love.
Questions grandparents ask us
What did the study find?
For the last hour, week or month, age made no difference to how fast time seemed to pass. For the last 10 years, the feeling of speed rose with age up to about 50, then stayed level.
Who ran it?
Marc Wittmann and Sandra Lehnhoff, published in Psychological Reports in 2005.
How many people were involved?
499 people answered questionnaires.
How strong was the effect?
Weak. Age explained at most 10% of the differences between people.
Did it study families or life stories?
No. It asked about the felt speed of time. This page makes no claim that it applies to family stories.
Why does it matter for a life story?
It suggests that long stretches of years can feel like they went by fast. Telling one of those years out loud, and keeping it, is a simple way to hold part of it.
https://getlifescribeapp.com/blog/the-time-that-sped-up-after-fifty