Eli5: Why, if at all, does it seem like the years go quicker as you get older?

Question

I hear a lot of people making that remark, that the years go by quicker as you get older.
For me, at least, it seems like that’s only the case if nothing much changes in my life in that year.
To me, years seem to feel like they go slower if there’s lots of new/different things happening.

In: 348

Answer 1

Work over free time. When you are younger, everything you do is new. When you start working, your job is always the same (at least this is true for most jobs). Over time, all your memories will mix up and sometimes you won’t be able to tell if something happened 10 or 20 years before, because the place was the same and people was the same as well.