Are you old? This is the age at which you start to be alone

At what age we’re getting old? This may seem like an almost philosophical question, because first we would have to ask ourselves what old age is. Is this determined only by our age or also by our energy? Does wisdom have anything to do with how old we are perceived to be? There are many questions that can be asked in this direction, but a group of scientists from Germany, Luxembourg and USA was more practical and limited himself to analyzing only old age in human perception.

When we were little, at 60 we thought our grandparents were old. However, when our parents become those who turn 60 years old, they no longer seem so old to us. The same thing happens when we ourselves grow old. We go from thinking of twenty-year-olds as super-adults to thinking of them as children. Then we think that perhaps we are exaggerating when we call those who are 35 years old clean. By the time we reach 60, we no longer believe that we are old.

These scientists wanted to analyze how this perception varies at two levels. On the one hand, from one generation to another and, on the other hand, over time in the same person. The study was just published in Psychology and aging and was conducted using data German Aging Study.

When do we grow old for each generation?

They took part in this study 14,000 people with years of birth between 1911 and 1974, which was followed for 25 years. Thus, at first the youngest were 40 years old, and finally the oldest were over 100.

They all had to answer several questions about aging. For example, at what age would you call a person old?

People born in 1911 who were asked on their 65th birthday, on average, thought someone was old. from 71. On the other hand, for 65-year-old participants born in 1956, this average age was 74 years old. This figure was even higher when it was women those who counted, both in one generation and in the next. On the other hand, if they were people who lived alone or sickthey realized that we age much earlier.

There are also individual changes in perception.

These changes were not only observed from generation to generation. The same person could raise the old age by 1 year, every 4 or 5 years be given.

What’s all this for?

It cannot be denied that in recent years the living conditions of the population have changed greatly. Life expectancy has increased significantly in many countries. But not only are we living longer, we are doing so with a higher quality of life. Previously, a person at 30 years old could look old. Some old photographs confirm this. However, today it is the flower of life.

Aging can be calculated in ways much more objective. For example, we can measure chromosome telomeres. In recent years, it has been discovered to be an excellent indicator of aging. This is also indicated by the presence of certain epigenetic markers. But all this cannot be seen from the outside.

If we stick to how we see ourselves and others, it becomes clear that appearances have changed a lot in recent years. Of course, according to this new study, the increase perception of old age has slowed down in recent years, so the differences compared to previous studies are becoming smaller and smaller.

Do we all look the same old everywhere?

This study has a major limitation as it was only conducted with German participants. Life expectancy has increased significantly in some parts of the world, but not so much in others. Moreover, whether we look more or less old can also have an important cultural component. Therefore, we cannot take these results as a global truth. It would be interesting to conduct similar studies in other countries.

At least now we understand why we see more and more young people who previously seemed old to us. Partly because we’re getting closer and don’t want to think about it, and partly because it improves our appearance and life expectancy. This is a great consolation.