How quickly can you access an element in a linked list?

Access to an element in a linked list is performed by sequential traversal from the beginning of the list to the desired element, so the access time is linear, i.e., O(n), where n is the position of the element.

Unlike arrays, where access by index is O(1), in a linked list, you cannot immediately jump to an arbitrary element because the elements are not stored contiguously in memory but are linked by pointers.

For example, to get the 5th element, you need to pass through the first 4 elements sequentially.