Doubt cast on the maxim that time goes faster as you get older

Fascinating research on this issue from the British Psychological Society bulletin.

Time gets faster the older you are. Or does it? When William Friedman and Steve Janssen asked 49 New Zealand undergrads (average age 21) and 50 older adults (average age 68) to say how fast time passed for them, including the last week, month and year, very few differences emerged. Most participants felt time passed quickly but it was only when considering the speed of the last ten years that the older adults said time had gone by more quickly than the younger participants, and even here the effect of age was small.

This finding, and another like it involving German and Austrian participants published in 2005, casts doubt on some of the classic explanations for time speeding up with age, including William James' suggestion that time feels slower when younger because it is packed with more memorable events. If true, you'd expect the effect to apply over time periods shorter than ten years.

Friedman and Janssen's initial study also undermined a novel explanation for time speeding up known as 'telescoping'. This is the idea that time feels faster when we look back on past events and discover that we underestimated how long ago they occurred. Earlier in the study, the researchers had asked their participants to estimate when 12 newsworthy events from the past had occurred, including Saddam Hussein's capture in 2003. By giving them false feedback on their accuracy, the researchers exaggerated or reduced the telescoping effect but this didn't have any effect on participants' subsequent ratings of how fast time goes by.

A second study, conducted on the internet, tested a novel explanation for time seeming faster to some people than others: feeling rushed. Nearly two thousand Dutch participants aged between 16 and 80 rated the speed of time and how rushed they felt in life. Once again, very few age differences emerged, with only the ten-year period being judged to have passed more quickly by older participants.

Age accounted for four per cent of the variance in how quickly participants said the last ten years had passed and just one per cent of the perception of time's speed in general. By contrast, how busy and rushed people reported feeling accounted for ten per cent of the variance in subjective speed of time. Consistent with this, women reported feeling more rushed than men, on average, and they perceived time to go by more quickly.

Quite why the idea that time speeds up with age is so widely believed requires further study, the researchers said. 'Another significant question,' they continued, 'is why age differences in the subjective speed of time are found when adults are asked to consider the last ten years but not present or only very weak when they report on the last year or more recent intervals.' The effect over ten years, they suggested, could simply be the self-fulfilling effect of the cultural belief that time speeds up with age.

'The answers to these questions,' Friedman and Janssen concluded, 'may shed light on a topic that has engaged philosophers and psychologists for more than 100 years.'
_________________________________

Friedman, W., & Janssen, S. (2010). Aging and the speed of time. Acta Psychologica, 134 (2), 130-141 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.actpsy.2010.01.004

Myths of ageing

This is the title of a European report which highlights 12 myths of ageing and proceeds to present the evidence which refutes them. Its about 2 years old now but still well worth downloading the report.

Christmas 2009: Young and Old

A recent BMJ article quoted some research into how articles published between January 1997 and April 2008 the Economist dealt with ageing. Most featured pensions, demography, and politics. Of these 64% portrayed population ageing as a burden and 12% as a benefit; 24% had a balanced view. Most articles therefore showed a predominantly ageist view of older people as a burden on society, often portraying them as frail non-contributors. Recurrent themes included pension and demographic "time bombs" and future unsustainable costs of health care for older people. The researchers concluded that this negative view of older people might be influential in shaping the attitudes of readers, who include opinion formers in political and economic circles. Gerontologists (including geriatricians) need to engage with influential media, as well as helping to promote a professional development of journalists that is informed and knowledgeable about the negative impact of ageism on the wellbeing of older people. Amen to that!

Men who believe ageing is linked to happiness binge drink

Young men who believe that ageing is associated with a decline in happiness are more likely to engage in risky health behaviours such as bingedrinking, according to a new study. Their negative view of the aging process may act as a disincentive to behave ‘sensibly’ and encourage them to make the most of the present in anticipation of ‘miserable’ old age, say researchers Dr. John Garry and Dr. Maria Lohan from Queen’s University Belfast, Northern Ireland.

For the study, researchers analyzed data from face-to-face interviews with over 1,000 citizens of Northern Ireland aged over 15 years. The respondents were also asked to report how happy they currently felt, as well as to estimate how happy they expected to be at the age of 30 and 70. Those who were over 30 and/or 70 were asked to think back at how happy they were then. The researchers also asked them to indicate how happy the average person of their age at age 30 is and how happy at age 70.

Young people wrongly believed that ageing is associated with a decline in happiness. Indeed, young people estimated that happiness declined with age, whereas in actual fact there was no difference between the self-reported happiness levels of young people and old people. Just over half the respondents were categorized as binge drinkers – 59 percent of males and 45 percent of females. In particular, young men who were pessimistic about future happiness were more likely to binge-drink.

“Our findings confirm, in the case of binge drinking by men, that risky health behaviour in youth is associated with an underestimation of happiness in old age. It may be worthwhile to emphasize, to young men in particular, the positive impact on their lives of reducing alcohol and inform them about happiness in old age,” the authors said.

Busting myths about older people:

From the Later Life Newsletter No 9 Supporting Communication between DWP and Government Office”

Myth:

“Over 65’s are dependent, frail and disengaged”

Fact:

· Only 15% of people over 65 receive social care

· Only 3% of people over 64, 18% of people over 80, and 28% of people over 90 live in residential care

· Only 20% of people over 80 suffer from some form of dementia

· 75% of people aged over 65 voted in the 2005 General Election