Have you had the feeling that time is going faster lately than it used to? If so, you're not alone and you're not imagining things.

Recent research says that the use of digital technology causes our brains to process information faster and it's also the cause of our plummeting attention spans. In 2000, the average human attention span was 12 seconds, but by 2013, it had dropped to 8 seconds. For a little perspective, a goldfish has an attention span of 9 seconds. Yep. Humans now have a shorter attention span than a goldfish.

Our digital lifestyles are actually changing the ways our brains work, inciting us to multitask and to move on quickly from anything we don't find immediately interesting. And just wait (don't worry, it won't seem like long) because as 5G rolls out, technology will move even faster – up to 100 times faster than the internet works right now.

How does digital technology affect us?

The most alarming thing about this research is that our constant diet of digital data means that our ability to think critically about this information is rapidly decreasing. I think just about all of us can attest to the fact that critical thinking is fast becoming a lost art. When we're spoon-fed nothing but media bias and alternative information becomes harder and harder to find, it's pretty clear that social bias will follow suit – something we're seeing right now.

So how does digital technology make it seem like time is passing us by faster than ever before? Watch this video.