Does peoples intelligence regress when they get older?

[Lynx122]

I'm seriously confused. In general you're supposed to get wiser with age because you've seen a lot of things and how people try to take advantage of you or other situations that you should be aware of in life but there's so many old people who I just ask myself what they were thinking. Like for instance retired English people living in Spain getting free healthcare because of a EU arrangement and they voted for Brexit. Even if the media was selling a bunch of lies shouldn't you know enough about life that you know things are not going to go well for you if the UK leaves the EU? Now they can only stay 90 days and then have to leave and they also have to pay for healthcare. Or for instance romance scams where people in their 60s get wooed by people in their 30s who look like models and are rich and apparently have nothing else to do but write someone unattractive on the other side of the world.

I mean I understand that keeping up with technology or the general trends and things you should know about can get harder when you get older. I even can experience that myself already even though I'm pretty young still. But common sense should still be around right? How do you believe these things that are completely unrealistic? I know there's people at every age that aren't that bright but it just seems the ratio is off. There should be less old people falling for stupid shit. When you've seen politics for 40 years already shouldn't you figure out some of the games they play at some point?

I'm just curious about what you think :)

[Alli39]

Assuming we're not talking about "older' as in old enough for dementia etc because they's a whole different situation. At that stage, you start to loose memories etc which can lead to poor decision making and the like.

But just in general with age, when you're young your brain is wired to learn a lot and quickly. Once you're an adult, your brain has kind of sorted itself out and is less flexible. You have more experiences and therefore more "data to analyze" and support your decisions, but the lack of flexibility makes learning new things a much more difficult than then you're young.

[exitseven]

You gain experience as you get older. People learn how to survive and take care of themselves and their families. The attain some measure of proficiency in different things. It does not necessarily mean that they are smart but they have learned something. Depending on the person their brain function may decline as they get older. The brain can compensate for this for a time.

[exitseven]

Thanks for the MHO😎

[RagnarRedbeard]

I don't think that it regresses, but you can't get more intelligent either. Intelligence is your ability to learn and remember things. A smart person will learn and grow wise, an idiot will learn nothing and will always do stupid shit.

[JoeMichael67]

Well yeah often times after people retire they don't use their brain as much and develop mental cobwebs. That's why a lot of retirees either go back to work or find something to keep their mind active.

[rainbowww]

I think this is possible

[Anonymous]

Obviously yes.