Why does it seem like when you’re little, high schoolers seem so tall and big. But when you reach their age you don’t even seem that tall?
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Because when youre a little kid you’re like 3 feet tall and 50lbs with a developing brain, so they literally are taller and bigger and more mature than you. Then when you have grown taller and learned more and developed more, you’re on the same level as high schoolers so they don’t seem taller and bigger anymore because they’re the same as you.
Why did I think people in their 40s were so old and lame when I was a teenager 25 years ago, and now oh look *American Pickers* is on wait what were we talking about?
Besides what others have said, there’s also confirmation bias and sample bias. I’ll give you examples for both.
When I was a high school freshman… I didn’t look like I belonged in high school. I was the smallest in my class and was actually mistaken for being 11 once (and when I was a senior, I was mistaken for a freshman). Had you seen me, you would have probably thought “Oh, he cannot be a high schooler, because high schoolers are tall and big, and that kid isn’t.” That would have been an attempt to confirm a wrong idea you already had: confirmation bias.
And as a reply to ajcpullcom: when you were a teenager you thought 40-year-olds were old and lame, because you only met a small, specific category of 40-year-olds: namely, teachers. They had power over you, they ordered you around, they told you to stop doing what you considered fun, they wanted discipline, and they were genuinely not fun. But then you applied a generalization: you believed that if all 40-year-olds you met (a small sample of the population) were like that, then absolutely every 40-year-old in the world was like that. That was sample bias.
It’s mostly perception. When you’re 3 feet tall someone who is 6 feet tall is literally twice your height, but once you are in high school you are the same as other high schoolers.
A good example of this is sports. The short guy in these three pictures: [picture 1](https://bostonglobe-prod.cdn.arcpublishing.com/resizer/WecjSbS4TfXneVeZedF7O_ds3rY=/1440×0/arc-anglerfish-arc2-prod-bostonglobe.s3.amazonaws.com/public/4EWVXODD24I6NK722OCJSXTUWA.jpg), [picture 2](https://wmoa1490.com/lib/sitefiles/cavaliers.jpg), [picture 3](https://images2.minutemediacdn.com/image/fetch/c_fill,g_auto,f_auto,h_389,w_590/https%3A%2F%2Fhardwoodhoudini.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2Fusat-images%2F2017%2F01%2F9819457-nba-new-york-knicks-at-boston-celtics-850×560.jpeg) is named Isaiah Thomas. Isaiah Thomas is 5’9″ (175 cm) tall, the average height for an American man, yet, because he plays in a sport where the average player is 6’7″, he looks tiny.
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