Many people right now are feeling that time is speeding up. Is this literally true? Is there just a mass illusion taking place? What is causing this?

Time is not truly speeding up by objective criteria, such as an atomic clock that is running concurrently, it is in a sense a shared perception that is a distortion, so in that sense, calling it a "mass illusion" is a reasonable description. It applies to those who are feeling acutely there is much happening and there is much at stake so there is an emotional intensity and important meanings assigned to things. So all with that perspective are feeling things more intensely, feeling there is more at stake, and are preoccupied with thoughts about the ongoing challenges and problems they are aware of, and what this creates within is a sense of having many challenges, many things needing to be attended to, but with too little time to deal with it all. This is quite the opposite of someone who is complacent and satisfied with the status quo, and perhaps even feeling a bit bored, because they are not feeling challenged by much of anything, as they handle everything that comes up and get done with time to spare so there is never a rush and they never feel stressed, particularly. Under such conditions, boredom can make a comparable amount of time seem to last forever because so little is happening that is a reward of any kind, or even the reward of having much to think about and even the existence of a difficult challenge, at least keeping the person from being bored, they are forced to take an interest and will do so and become fully engaged to meet the challenge in most cases, and that will bring rewards of its own, particularly once one has achieved a certain degree of accomplishment and can feel satisfied with their success, even though it is incremental and temporary because life will keep coming at them with new things. But still, these are the signs of a life well spent and with meaning and purpose, and that itself is highly rewarding even though it might be harrowing and difficult. For such an individual, there’s barely enough time to turn around so there will be little opportunity to be idle and to have much relaxation. That is what creates the illusion of time zooming by because it would be preferable to stand down at intervals and decompress and have the luxury of doing even nothing but perhaps a favorite past time, even just sitting in a comfortable chair and engaging with some entertaining movie, or some time outdoors at leisure enjoying the breeze and hearing the birds sing and looking at the beauties in nature and not feeling rushed—that is a luxury many people do not have. So what your question is describing is that each individual will have a personal perspective about reality and how it is proceeding, and that will be governed by the nature and quality of their life experience as it unfolds and the many sources of stimulation, whether they are positive or negative, and the relative burden in how much of their awareness commands their attention to duty as opposed to personal and even selfish pursuits at times as a way to relax and find pleasure in their day. But it is not a distortion of physics due to some overarching orchestration perhaps that portends something about the future, that life is somehow being truncated through an acceleration to rush towards a calamitous finality and rob you of time. You will have the same time as anyone else but will vary in how you perceive and also engage with its utilization, and that will determine how you experience it compared to another individual.