“Summer has flown by” doesn’t necessarily mean that a person didn’t get enough rest, according to Science.mail. “When we say that summer has flown by, it may not mean that we didn’t do much, but rather that we were too busy to notice how we were spending it,” says clinical psychologist Anastasia Chernitsa.
According to her, constant planning, dealing with work issues, and switching between tasks leave little attention for the present moment. As a result, people gain new experiences but don’t always have time to feel and process them.
With age, another factor comes into play—the repetitiveness of experiences. In childhood, summer is associated with a wealth of new experiences: activities, places, and social circles change, and new impressions emerge. In adulthood, daily life becomes more predictable, and it becomes harder to distinguish similar events in one’s memory.
Clinical psychologist Ivan Kurganksy notes that a decrease in the density of new memories affects the subjective perception of the past. Memory does not store every episode separately, so a large number of similar events can, over time, “merge” into a more general memory.
This theory is partially consistent with current research but does not fully explain the effect. A study published in 2026 in Memory & Cognition showed that older adults are more likely to perceive the past decade as having passed more quickly. However, the number and subjective significance of autobiographical memories did not account for the differences between age groups. The researchers discovered a link to another characteristic—the ability to form new memories.
Thus, the notion that time simply “speeds up” with age due to the monotony of life remains too simplistic. The subjective pace of time is influenced by memory, attention, and the nature of the experience itself.
At the same time, trying to compensate for a lack of new experiences by packing one’s schedule full can backfire. According to psychologists, many people treat leisure the same way they treat work, striving to get as much done as possible. In this mode, even a full-fledged summer risks turning into just another project. Therefore, the experts’ advice is simple: sometimes, to ensure that summer isn’t just a fleeting memory, it’s better to allow yourself to not get everything done.
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