I say this in threads whenever this concept comes up, but I doubt the feeling has anything to do with something intrinsic in the brain, but is just representative of the variety of novel activities you do, and for most people their novel activity seeking wanes as they get older. Giving your brain more time to go on "auto pilot" and lose track of time.

The year I spent at a desk when I was 24 feels significantly shorter than the 3 months I spent at 39 traveling in strange lands.

Surely the degrading hardware gotto play a role aswell.

I'm just a few years shy of being 24 years older than 24, but I have to say my lived-experience does not agree with this observation. The time from 24-today seems much longer than the time from 0-24.

I do remember a period in my early 30s where time seemed to move fast, but hasn't felt that way in over a decade.

Though I suspect, agreeing with much of the article, this is because my life has had a fair amount of novelty in it, even as I age. I often marvel at how impossible to predict my life has been even a year out. Even a year ago I would not have imagined doing the job I'm currently doing, traveling to the places for work I currently need to, meeting the new people I have, solving problems in a space I had no understanding of.

As contrast I've often been shocked to talk with former coworkers to find that have had nothing change, not even what they're working on during the day, in the span of time that has resulted in my making multiple moves, changing multiple jobs (arguably even careers), learning new skills, etc. The most extreme was a college roommate I hadn't talked to in 20 years, and barring his marriage a few months after we last spoke, his day-to-day routine was identical to what it was 20 years ago. We only had a chance to meet up because I had briefly moved back near the area we went to school.

never had that. or worked a job. or lived away

sounds cool!

I thought two minutes have passed, yet I have a whole other minute to live. I thought time passed quickly, but I get to experience twice as much time. By that logic, we think we're 80 when we're 40, and we have another subjective 80 years to live.

How is that "time flies by"? Time would fly by if it went by so slowly for me that ten hours had passed when I thought it had only been a minute.

This seems bogus to me. I’m 51; I set a timer on my phone for 2 minutes, put it aside and counted to about 128 before it went off.

Why would your ability to count seconds change over time? A second has always felt a little slow to me, probably because my resting pulse is above 60.

(I think it’s also ambiguously described? Maybe they meant the opposite, in which case it took me about 114 seconds to count to 120.)

It's tragic, and I don't want to suffer that fate. Alas, there's no escape for common trash without at least 3 million in assets.

I try to seek novelty as much as I can. It's not about trying a new ice cream flavour, it's novel experiences. I might have to go into work for 8 hours, but there's at least 8 more hours where I don't need to always do the same things as before. And if you get a chance to work remotely and have no strong ties, you can pack up and go live elsewhere for a while.