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Life just seems to speed up
年紀越大，時間過得越快？
When we are children, the summer holidays seem to last forever, and the wait between Spring Festivals feels like an eternity. But later, we may find that the time just seems to fly by, with weeks, months and entire seasons disappearing from a blurred calendar at a fast speed. Why does time seem to pass faster as we get older?
小時候，我們總覺得暑假似乎永遠都不會結束，春節仿佛遙遙無期。但后來，我們或許會覺得光陰似箭，一周又一周、一月又一月、春去秋來，日子匆匆從模糊不清的日歷上溜走。為什么隨著我們長大，時間卻似乎變得更快了呢？
According to the Daily Mail, our brains degrade as we get older. That decreases the amount of information we can deal with in a single day.
據《每日郵報》報道，我們的大腦會隨著年齡漸長而退化。我們一天能夠處理的信息量也因此減少了。
"The human mind senses time changing when the perceived images change," Adrian Bejan from Duke University, the US, told the Daily Mail. "The present is different from the past because the mental viewing has changed, not because somebody's clock rings."
“當被感知的影像發生變化時，人類大腦會感覺到時間的流逝，”來自美國杜克大學的阿德里安·貝揚在接受《每日郵報》采訪時表示。“現在與過去不同，是因為心理狀態也發生了變化，而不是因為人們的生物鐘有所改變。”
Infants, for example, move their eyes much more often than adults because they're processing images at a faster rate. They deal with a large amount of information and do many things in a single day. This makes them feel like a single day lasts for a long time.
舉例來說，幼兒轉動眼球的頻率會比成年人高，因為他們處理影像的速度會更快些。他們一天內會處理大量信息，做許多事情。這會令他們覺得一天很長。
However, as people get older, fewer images are processed in the same amount of time. Therefore, older people receive less information during a day than younger people. This causes things to seem as though they're happening more quickly.
然而，隨著人們年齡增長，在相同時間內處理的影像變少了。因此，年長者一天之內所接收的信息會比年輕人少。這會令事情看上去似乎發生得更快了。
Apart from the degradation of our brains, some psychological reasons also make us experience time differently.
除了大腦退化之外，一些心理因素也會讓我們對時間的感覺發生改變。
People may measure time by the number of memorable events that can be recalled within a certain period.
人們或許會用回憶中某一時期所發生的難忘事件來衡量時間。
When we think about our youth, we may remember a life packed with first-time activities, for example, our first time traveling without our parents, or our first date. We experienced these events so vividly that time then seems to us to have passed very slowly. According to David Eagleman of the Baylor College of Medicine in the US, recalling these memories makes us feel like they took forever.
當我們回憶起年少時期時，我們或許會想起生活中的種種第一次，比如，第一次離開父母出門旅游，或者第一次約會。我們所經歷的這些事情歷歷在目，那段時光在我們看來仿佛走得很慢。來自美國貝勒醫學院的大衛·依格曼認為，回想往事會讓我們覺得那些時光很漫長。
Many adults find life is routine and sometimes dull. For this reason, when they look back, they might feel like there are not many exciting things to remember. Therefore, time seems to be moving faster to them.
許多成年人都覺得生活一成不變，了無生趣。因此，當他們回顧過去時，或許會覺得沒有多少有趣好玩的事情。正因為如此，時間對于他們而言，似乎就過得更快了。
