TIME X NOVELTY

"The amount of novelty continues to increase as the child grows into a teen. Between the ages of 15 and 25, there is more freedom and new experiences to explore. There are more ‘firsts’ and these memories are usually densely packed. There is a first love, first kiss, first alcoholic drink, first sexual relationship, and first time away from home. Psychologists refer to that period as the ‘reminiscent bump’. These rich memories are easily remembered because they occur during the formative years when a person’s identity is being consolidated. These novel experiences create so many memory markers that when they are recalled, that period of time will appear to have taken longer than it actually did. Time will seem to have been running slowly. This goes on until the late twenties when people start to settle down. In our thirties, our lifestyle often starts to become more organized and predictable. We may find a steady job, establish a family with the usual home chores and rhythm that repeats itself week after week. The amount of new experiences decreases and things become much more familiar. There is less novelty and we slowly lose that childish sense of wonder. We gradually stop paying conscious attention to the things around us -the town we live in, the buildings, streets, and our route to work-since we have seen those a million times. Our brain starts ignoring most of the familiar things and ceases to notice the small details that makes one day different from another. With fewer unique memories being recorded, the period of time will be experienced as being shorter. As a result, a year of childhood that is full of rich memories will seem longer than a year of adulthood which has fewer"