By: MICHELLE PARK
Staff Writer
It’s already December and in 24 days it will be 2023. Time goes by too fast. When I was young, there were many times when I felt like time was passing slowly. But why does it feel like time goes by faster as we get older?
Humans perceive time through sight, hearing, and smell. Humans make sensory information into one unified event and then organize it according to time intervals, and subjectively feel time according to the order in which events are listed.
In this process, the hormone ‘dopamine’, allowing humans to feel pleasure, satisfaction and motivation, is used. The brain’s neural circuit stimulates according to the amount of dopamine secretion, and the memory strength is determined. However, as we age, the amount of dopamine secretion decreases, and the degree of stimulation of neural circuits in the brain decreases. As a result, the intensity of memory weakens, and it makes time feel like it’s going faster.
Also, repeated daily life makes you feel like time goes by quickly. The brain remembers interesting or shocking events for a long time, but on the contrary, it does not react to things that are repeated every day.