Just as we accumulate memories of facts by integrating them into a network, we accumulate life experiences by integrating them into a web of other chronological memories. The denser the web, the denser the experience of time.

Foer draws an analogy between how memory works for information and how it works for lived time. Facts become easier to recall when they are meaningfully linked—embedded in a “network” of associations rather than stored as isolated items. Likewise, life feels fuller and longer in retrospect when experiences are richly connected to other moments: routines, relationships, places, and narrative milestones that create many cross-links in autobiographical memory. A “denser web” implies more distinctive, interrelated episodes, which can make a period seem to contain more time when remembered, whereas monotonous or unconnected days leave fewer retrieval cues and can collapse into a blur.