Why summers feel shorter in adulthood, according to a University of Cyprus psychologist

Nicosia, Cyprus. For many people in Cyprus, the end of the school year once opened up a seemingly endless summer, but the same season often feels far shorter in adult life. According to Marios Avraamides, professor of Cognitive Psychology at the University of Cyprus, the explanation lies in memory rather than perception.

Childhood summers versus adult ones

Many people recall school-free summers as a long stretch of beach days, afternoons with friends, summer jobs, first loves and weeks still ahead before September. As adults, they often face children to entertain, holidays to arrange and work that carries on regardless of school closures, and September arrives quickly.

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This raises the question of whether the change is simply a result of ageing or whether it depends on how days are spent.

Memory and the density of experiences

Avraamides says that experiencing time as it passes and remembering past intervals afterwards are two separate, though connected, matters. He uses the term density for the number of distinct, memorable events a person goes through, and sees it as one reason childhood appears to have lasted longer.

Childhood brings a steady flow of new experiences, such as starting at a new school, making friends and going on family holidays. Adult life, in contrast, can grow more repetitive. Avraamides explains that fewer distinct events leave memory with less to draw on later, so a year is recalled in hindsight as having gone by quickly.

A 21-year-old’s view

The feeling does not necessarily appear only in middle age. Andreas Papacostas, 21, studies sports and exercise science at UCLan Cyprus and works as a fitness and swimming coach. He says time has seemed to move faster since his last year of high school, and that the sensation has grown stronger since he began combining university with two jobs.

He describes his third year at university as “the fastest year ever!”. His childhood memories differ. He remembers waiting three months for a family holiday in England, a span that felt extremely long when he was younger. In his words, “That three months that I was waiting for that trip, it was like a decade!”