How old are you really? For many French women and men, the question may seem innocuous, if not downright silly: how to ignore your date of birth, birthday or simply the number of candles blown out from one year to the next? However, it is more interesting than it first appears. And for good reason ! It raises a number of other related questions, including that of the so-called “perceived” age. It is clear, indeed, that everyone is not the same in the face of the years. Time does not have the same hold on individuals and some feel younger or older than they really are.
It is this discrepancy between real age and age as it is perceived – experienced, even! – which constitutes the perceived age.
On average, explains BFMTV, fifties see themselves considerably younger than they really are: they consider themselves to be ten years younger than in reality, approximately. From the age of around 28, people tend to look younger. A phenomenon that is all the more interesting as the difference in perception increases with age, continues the press title, which is based on a recent study carried out by American researchers among 500,000 Internet users. Thus, at 80, the average perceived age drops to… 65.
If Internet users are getting so younger, the researchers explain, it is to try to dissociate themselves psychologically from stigmatized groups, which in this case include the elderly.
“Individuals often associate old age with weakness, loss of resources and increased risk of catching infectious diseases – all of which increases stigma,” write the researchers from the University of Michigan, whose findings are taken up by BFMTV. . Another important point: the course of entry into old age changes according to the age of Internet users. The youngest tend to place this level around 60 years old when the sixties place it… 10 years later.
