Have you ever had that dizzying feeling when a memory from a few years ago feels like it was both yesterday and a lifetime ago? Or have you had to pause, for just a second too long, to do the mental math when someone asks your age? If so, you’re not just being forgetful, you’re experiencing a phenomenon that has captured the attention of millions. This strange, elastic sense of time is the subject of a viral TikTok video by Emily Lin @therealemilylin, which has exploded into a massive digital group therapy session for young adults trying to make sense of their own age. 

“If you’re 24 to 27, that’s all the same age.”, “If you’re 34, you’re 31; if you’re 35, you’re 35.” Lin’s statement taps into a universal nerve, the comment section is a testament to this shared confusion: one of the top comments said that we’ve all “lost” three years due to the pandemic, while another jokingly commented that she’s Asian doing the math so it’s definitely accurate. The video’s immense popularity reveals a fundamental truth for those navigating their twenties and thirties: age isn’t just a number on a driver’s license. It’s a fluid, baffling, and often contradictory feeling, and it turns out there are very real reasons why our brains play these tricks on us.

@therealemilylin

my credentials are i’m always right

♬ original sound – Emily Lin

This phenomenon is particularly pronounced in our early twenties. For many between the ages of 20 and 23, the label “adult” feels like an ill-fitting costume. Why is it that you might have to pause and genuinely think for a second to recall if you’re 21 or 23? The answer lies in a relatively new life stage that sociologists have termed “emerging adulthood.”

Unlike previous generations, where the path to adulthood was marked by a clear sequence of milestones—finishing school, leaving home, getting married, and starting a career, often in quick succession—today’s young adults experience a more prolonged and less structured transition. Higher education extends for longer, entry into the workforce can be delayed, and major life commitments like marriage and homeownership are happening later than ever before. This lack of distinct, life-altering events means that the years can blend together. The difference between being a 21-year-old university student and a 23-year-old recent graduate might feel negligible, lacking the dramatic shifts that once defined the transition into adulthood. Life is still largely about self-exploration and instability, making it difficult to feel fully “grown up.”

@therealemilylin

Replying to @Lizzie sending you hugs my baby 🥰

♬ original sound – Emily Lin

Then, as you cross the threshold into your late twenties and early thirties, a new temporal distortion takes hold: time begins to accelerate. It’s a common refrain among those in their mid-thirties to exclaim, “I still feel like I just turned 30,” even as their 35th birthday looms. This isn’t just a feeling; it’s a well-documented psychological phenomenon. There are a few key theories as to why this happens.

One of the most prominent is that our perception of time is relative to the proportion of our life we have already lived. To a 5-year-old, a single year is a staggering 20% of their entire existence—an eternity. To a 30-year-old, a year is just 1/30th of their life, a much smaller fraction that feels subjectively shorter. As we age, each subsequent year represents an ever-dwindling percentage of our total lived experience, making it feel as though time is speeding up. TikToker Lia @ptite_lia realized that the perception of the smallest unit of time had changed now compared to her childhood.

@ptite_lia

Time space compression… there isnt a day that goes by where i dont think about it…. “Time-space compression refers to the set of processes that cause the relative distances between places (i.e., as measured in terms of travel time or cost) to contract, effectively making such places grow “closer.” The idea of a “shrinking world” is not new and, in the face of rapid advances in travel, such as the jet airplane, and communications (especially the Internet), has entered into the public geographical imagination.” (Oxfordbibliographies) #gettingolder #growingup #anthropology #timespacecompression

♬ original sound – Lia

Another compelling explanation is the novelty, or lack thereof, in our experiences. Our brains encode new and novel experiences with great detail, which makes time feel as though it has passed more slowly in retrospect. Childhood and early adulthood are packed with “firsts”: first day of school, first love, first time driving a car, first job. These novel events serve as strong temporal markers. However, by our thirties, life often settles into a routine. The days, weeks, and even years can become homogenous—work, commute, eat, sleep, repeat. And every day we go to work we look forward to the next weekend off. As there are fewer and fewer new experiences to create unique memories, the brain has fewer and fewer anchors to differentiate one year from the next, causing them to blur together into fast-flowing streams that make entire periods of time feel compressed.

From the hazy, undefined feeling of the early twenties to the dizzying speed of the thirties, our internal clocks are rarely synchronized with the calendar. The viral discussion sparked by Emily Lin’s video is a testament to this shared human experience. It reminds us that while we all march through time at the same chronological pace, our perception of that journey is deeply personal, shaped by our experiences, our routines, and the simple, yet profound, mathematics of age.

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