21 May 2008

Baby boomers are smarter than you think

It seems as if I’m smarter than I think I am:
Baby boomers are smarter than you think
Researchers have confirmed what many mature people already know – intelligence actually gets sharper with age.
Yeah? Then how come I didn’t know this already?

… Oh, that’s right. Baby Boomers aren’t ‘mature.’ We think we’re still youngsters.
Wisdom increases with age, research says
Scientists have discovered that intelligence, instead of peaking in our youth, remains stable and in some respects gets sharper as we grow older.
And the New York Times is weighing in. When we think we're losing it, we're actually gaining it:
Older Brain Really May Be a Wiser Brain
When older people can no longer remember names at a cocktail party, they tend to think that their brainpower is declining. But a growing number of studies suggest that this assumption is often wrong. Instead, the research finds, the aging brain is simply taking in more data and trying to sift through a clutter of information, often to its long-term benefit ...

"...Older adults, because they’ve retained all this extra data, they’re now suddenly the better problem solvers. They can transfer the information they’ve soaked up from one situation to another."
Hmmm. I keep hearing that 50 is the new 30. Now I’ll be hearing that 50 is the new 70.

1 comment:

  1. Chuck;
    Thank you for bringing this valuable research to the attention of all of us who are trying to convince people to respect Boomers intellectual competence in the workplace (in my case, through my blog, boomerworkers.com) and in the communications world (which you do so passionately and competently). Raise a Heinekin to Dr. Larsen and the U. of Aarhus. John McMennamin

    ReplyDelete

Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.