One of the things I love about covering the way we grow older is that it requires a constant awareness of the future. When you think about it, aging is progress: You're moving forward in time, changing the world around you according to the way you gray.
Ursula Staudinger, director of the Columbia Aging Center
I spent three days recently at Columbia University in New York with 25 fellow journalists in this field, listening to prominent academics and activists discuss the future of aging. The annual Age Boom Academy is a joint project of the Columbia Aging Center and its journalism school, designed to help us pay attention to where this unprecedented worldwide longevity bonus might be steering us all.
One very interesting moment came when a nationally known broadcaster asked a question of Ursula Staudinger, a lifespan psychologist who directs the new Aging Center. Staudinger asked the journalist how old she was. Suddenly the room pulsed with an embarrassed silence.
Gently, Staudinger offered up her own chronological age: 54. This brought a flustered admission that the journalist was in her "late 50s."
Staudinger took the awkward exchange as an opportunity to talk about the concept of "felt age." She cited work by Yale psychologist Becca Levy, who found a seven-year survival difference among elders, according to their own positive or negative perceptions of old age.
"How old we feel imprints itself on how we act and experience old age," Staudinger said. "You either want to get into your own old age or you don't, and it plays out dramatically."
She proposed a thought experiment that helps people see their time spent on the planet in a less terrifying light. Instead of obsessing about your own chronological age — a measure that varies widely among individuals — "think about the historical year you were born," she suggested, "and immediately your associations will change."
This ability to view your lifespan as a chunk of history does more than help you get over yourself. It draws your attention to what is happening in the world as a result of our longer lives. The age boom, Staudinger pointed out, is unfolding in tandem with what she calls a "fertility revolution." It means that as we grow older, there are fewer babies being born in our wake.
"It is the combination of longevity and fertility we need to take into account," she said. "By the year 2070, population growth will come to a halt. We will be shrinking."
Jim Firman, CEO, National Council on Aging
At 59, I don't intend to be around to see that — but I very much care about whether we will shrink to fit our challenges or prove too small for them. And this symposium made clear that the people who are over 50 now will make a momentous difference in the outcome.
James Firman, CEO of the National Council on Aging in Washington, D.C., framed that in the form of a call to action.
"What expectations do we have of the baby boomers and the silent generation?" he asked. "We expect almost nothing, is the answer. We expect that they'll vote, be consumers of health care, collect Social Security, play golf and watch TV. This is a pretty pathetic set of expectations."
Firman shared findings from the Bureau of Labor Statistics that Americans now between the ages of 65 and 74 spend a weekly average of 8.8 hours a day sleeping, 6.7 hours pursuing leisure and sports, 2.4 hours in household activities and 1.2 hours working.
"That paradigm makes no sense anymore for a generation of 78 million people," said Firman, who at 62 can count himself as a boomer. "We have a gift of longevity; what are we doing with it? Do we have any responsiblity to be healthy? Do we have any responsibility to die well? Do we have any responsibility to contribute to a better world?"
