WHY DID TIME SUDDENLY START FEELING FASTER AFTER 2020?

Many people all over Reddit, Instagram posts, Facebook posts, YouTube shorts, and Twitter—on any platform, there are thousands of posts saying, "Guys, don't you think we have stopped to realize time? It all just feels the same. " There are many ways people felt this. “At first, it was just a weird feeling — like weeks were slipping past a little too quietly. Then months started folding into each other. Birthdays didn’t feel as distinct. Days stopped having edges. Somewhere after 2020, time didn’t just move… it started blurring.”

This pandemic, unless you are 4 years old, affected everybody, including you, me, and thousands of millions of people. There are MANY, and I mean MANY, theories about how or why this is felt; this post will go through these theories, some delusional, some relatable, and some that feel like the actual reason, and we will conclude with the actual reasons.

Here is a wild theory that I saw on TikTok; according to this person, the world apparently ENDED in 2020 lockdown and what we are in now is one long and believable DREAM made from our minds to cope with the loss of reality… I mean, think: if this is a dream, how are all humans in one giant dream, and how can they interact or perform actions? And does that mean the people who die found reality because people say that when you die in a dream, you wake up in real life?

Here is another one. There was a post on Reddit with people making a theory on a phenomenon called a “time skip." This is in the context that almost everybody feels like 2019 was just 1 or 2 years ago, but it was actually 7 YEARS AGO, which just doesn't feel real, making people believe that the pandemic paused time. After the pandemic, time continued, but we humans mentally couldn't just unpause back into reality and normal life. I personally also feel like 2019 was like 2 or 3 years ago and it's somehow already 2026. What I think is that people couldn't move from the shock of an all-dangerous, life-threatening world pandemic in state of outbreak and emergency and by the time everything recovered, it will have benn almost a decade; it will be 2030 in 2 and a half years…

Here is the 3rd and last significant reason, which many people agreed on: the timeline switch, where people say when in 2020 we intersected a timeline with the same pandemic going on but at the end; hence, we accidentally switched the timelines, proving all the mismatched memories and why time feels accelerated now. But this is totally internet-driven because of many people combining their ideas.

-THE REAL 4 REASONS WHY TIME FEELS FASTER NOW -

1. Routine During Pandemic

During lockdown most of us had the same routine; there were a lot of days that looked pretty much the same—same rooms, same schedule, fewer new experiences. In retrospect, the brain uses memorable events to “measure” time. If fewer distinct memories are made, long periods can feel strangely short when looking back. Making 2020 and 2019 feel like 2 or a maximum of 3 years ago instead of 7 and 6, people can't believe that almost a whole decade has gone by since covid.

2. Digital life

Working remotely, watching short-form video, constant notifications, and always being in touch imply our attention flits around a lot. When our attention is scattered, we fail to absorb events as deeply, and this can create the sense that time is flying by. The brain processes tasks less deeply when attention is divided, which can make time seem to rush by. All this overstimulation of thoughts leads to you not being able to tell even what date or month it is, which was very common in the outbreak. If a person had for just 10 minutes to sit outside on their lawn or balcony and just went away from phones, TVs, and the internet towards just natural peace and silence, their brain could finally function properly and gain more awareness.

3. Aging changes time

As people grow older, every year is a smaller fraction of their whole life experience. For example, a year seems considerably larger to a 10-year-old compared to a 40-year-old. Many adults noticing “faster time” after 2020 may also be entering stages of life where this impact becomes more obvious. Some experts suggest that the great disruption of 2020 shattered the “average timeline” of people and made the years after feel compressed or surreal. when you are in childhood, every year is a BIG part of your life because everything is new for you: the sky, earth, people, toys, cartoons. A day feels MUCH biggers as a child but the older you get, the less significant every year gets for example—

• For a 10-year-old, 1 year = 10% of everything they’ve ever experienced.
• For a 50-year-old, 1 year = only 2% of their life.

4. The brain remembers more significant events instead of repetitive days.

Time feels slower when your brain is actively learning and noticing new things. Nothing noticeably big or significant happened in the pandemic-following years; everyone got back to their normal lifestyle, which they had 3 years ago, and it seemed nothing had happened. The brain only collects information useful to function. When kept in such repetitve enviourment there is nothing to learn from.

Remember, TIME NO MATTER WHAT DOESN'T STOP FOR ANYONE, HOWEVER MUCH MONEY, RESOURCES, OR KNOWLEDGE ANYONE HAS, SO YOU HAVE TO MAKE THE MOST OF WHATEVER YOU GET.