Time is Different?

 One of the trends on social media (X that is) that has fascinated me lately is a perception among some people that somehow "time is different." 

I see this quite a bit from strangers in my feed. It comes in the form of the expression of an uncanny feeling that somehow the very flow of time has undergone a metaphysical change in recent years, as if we are in some kind of End Times. Most commonly people express this in relation to 2020. Nothing has felt the same since then, people say, but no one can say exactly how. Yet from the many comments such posts receive, I can infer that the feeling is widespread. People of all ages seem to feel it, even young people, which is odd. 

To focus on political changes is to miss the point entirely. It is not an expression just that "things have changed". That would be part of a normal old-style flow of time and change. We have all felt that. It was the dominant feeling in the 20th century and led to a cultural of rolling nostalgia. We are beyond that now. It is something deeper apparently. One could offer rational explanations, but these too defy easy interpretations that are satisfying.