Lack of curiosity with age?

In My Humble Opinion
1

Multiple threads over the years have decried most older people’s inability or unwillingness to learn new things, and their usually dogged refusal to change or upgrade things. Not all older people are that way, but most seem to be.

I mean, I think of my in-laws, who have a HDTV, and a pretty spiffy DVR, and yet can’t be bothered to learn how to use the DVR to it’s advantage. Saying “Back that up a bit” gets met with blank stares, or “tape the rest of this; we’re going to go do X” also gets blank stares. They basically use this neat 21st century technology as if it was a TV and VCR from 1990- they tape shows, but individual shows- no recurrent timers or anything like that. No keyword searching for shows, no auto-timers to switch the news on at 6 pm (which my FIL would really dig, I think), nothing like that.

What prompted the thread though, was seeing signs of it in myself, or what I perceive to be signs of it. By that, I mean that I’m a 42 year old practicing technology professional, and I’m usually intensely curious about things, yet I find myself saying “Eh, who cares?” about a lot of the newer technological whiz-bang sites and technologies. I mean, I didn’t bother getting a handle on how Twitter worked until late last year, and still haven’t really figured out what’s special about Instagram versus any of the other photo sharing sites, other than the shitty looking filters. That voice in the back of my head says that if I wait, the good apps/sites will shake out, and I’ll learn about them at that point.

And I find myself a lot less excited about gadgetry and high tech stuff than I used to be- back say 15 years ago, I knew what was up with computers and technology, and the main limiting factor was cash, not knowledge or interest. Now I have cash, and the interest isn’t there. That’s not to say that I just buy crap when I need a new TV, but rather that my TV’s a 6 year old 50" 1080p Panasonic plasma, and I have no intention of upgrading it until it entirely craps out to the point of unwatchability. From 2008-2014, I had a Samsung Rugby flip-phone- partially because the damn thing wouldn’t die, and partially because I wasn’t that enthused about having a smartphone.

So anyway, what I’m asking is for opinions on whether the old-age related lack of curiosity and interest is just an intensified version of what I’m experiencing, or if people just have a “I’ve seen it all” kind of attitude as they get older, or if the vast run of people are just not very curious, and this just intensifies as they age?

2

When you’re younger you try new things because that’s how you gain experience. You’re young, inexperienced, you don’t have decades of habits and routines you’re still working all that out.

When you’re older, you’ve worked out habits and routines that work well for you and you tend not to want to change them unless there’s a definite pay-off for you, personally. You’ve also learned your likes and dislikes pretty well by the time you hit middle-age.

As an example, in my 20’s I was pretty willing to try a new way of cooking calimari. I never really liked calimari, but I was open to trying a new version hoping I’d like it. Now, I don’t bother - after trying a dozen variations I’ve concluded it’s the squid part I don’t really care for, not what it’s cooked in or how. So why bother trying a new version? Maybe that makes me look less adventuresome or curious to some people.

So maybe it’s not that they’re less curious, but they’ve concluded that there are broad categories they’re not really interested in and they’d rather devote their time to things they actually care for, or don’t want to waste the mental energy on learning something that will be outmoded in 6 months or a year when some older thing serves them just as well. If you don’t care for newer music but you have a large CD collection you enjoy listening to you might feel less need to “upgrade” to an MP3 player and go to downloads. If your knitting circle you’ve been going to for 40 years meets your needs for socializing you’ll see less point in joining Facebook or Twitter.

Of course, there are some folks who start suffering from mental decline, but that doesn’t describe the average. Plenty of middle-aged and elderly folks manage to keep up with new stuff that actually interests them.

3

I’m 61 YO and just a few years from retirement. I no longer feel the need to be on the leading edge of my field. I’ll be happy to just stay in the current job until I retire and hope that they don’t force any major upgrades and updates on my position. Back in the day I usually wanted to be the first to play with new toys. I’ve even been a software beta tester a few times. No more.

And the same my happen with other parts of my life. I’m happy the way things are now and know that there is diminishing returns for investing in something new even though I fully expect to live another 20 years.

4

I think Broomstick, along with some thoughts in the OP, covered it fairly well.

As we acquire knowledge (and, we hope, wisdom), we find less incentive to explore every new possibility. As my high school U.S. history teacher taught us to ask about things, “So what?” Is this new [whatever] really likely to make life more enjoyable? If not, why bother with it? I’d rather spend my time and energy doing/using things I already know I like than going through the learning curve to see if I might like this new thing better – especially if experience has shown me that 90+% of new things really don’t improve my life.

5

Like **Broomstick **said, the wisdom of years is a very useful filter. You can usually tell what’s worth your time and what doesn’t interest you. For example, my husband has been trying for years to get me to ride a motorcycle. When I was in my 20s, a boyfriend taught me the basics, and over the years, I’ve ridden on the back of various bikes. My husband has a Harley Fat Boy and I’ve ridden with him a few times, and I honestly do not enjoy it. The things I don’t like - the noise, the heat, the feeling of vulnerability around cars - won’t change if I’m sitting with my hands on the controls. He’s finally accepted it (I hope) as the current modification to his bike includes a single seat only.

I also don’t want a smart phone - the monthly cost (especially to a retiree) is way more than any advantages might be. I don’t need to carry the internet with me, there’s a GPS in the car, so I don’t need that app, and, frankly, I don’t want to be one of those people sitting in a restaurant bent over my device. My flip phone can make and receive calls and texts for a fraction of the cost of a smart phone, especially when you consider that hardly anyone calls or texts me anyway!

On the other hand, I find the Large Hadron Collider and the New Horizon space probe to be fascinating, along with other science-y stuff, so my curiosity is more focused.

6

I’m a firm believer that curiousity is the collagen of the mind. It keeps the mind limber and flexible and youthful. It is far too easy to just slide into familiar ruts and stay there. As was stated above, we have found things that work just fine and see no need to rock the boat. But why not rock it? I’m almost sixty now and if I’d stopped being curious about new tech at any point in my life, it’s staggering how much I’d be missing now. One of my biggest regrets about aging is how much I’m going to miss seeing. As we edge ever closer to sending human beings on long-duration space travel, I may be around to wave them goodbye, but likely won’t still be around for their debriefing later. Bummer. I may make it to the point where driverless cars are a normal sight on the roadways, but I won’t likely make it to the point where the entire nation’s highways become an intricate grid. Maybe good for humanity, maybe not, but I probably won’t be around to find out. Bummer again.

But in the interim, I’m an early adopter for all the new goodies coming out. I can afford them now and I enjoy (for the most part, when I’m not cursing at them for being user unfriendly) learning all of the capabilities. I enjoy finding out about the hacks and add-ons and ‘secrets’ that make devices do things they were never intended to do. And I’m not even a techie - quite the opposite, actually.

I constantly sample new music, always interested in where people are taking music and what they are doing with it. That DOES come naturally as I am a musician. Same with art, literature, economics, politics, you name it.

My biggest fear is developing Alzheimers or another dementia disorder and losing the ability to exercise my curiousity freely in my later years when I’ll have the time to do so.

E-readers came along just in time to save me from slowing down on my reading. Wearing glasses for the first time has been aggravating. They never seem to work properly for reading if they work properly for driving and vice versa. I have not yet found the right prescription to do all the things I do, but I’m still working on that.

I’ve always been the kind of person who asked “Why?” If I catch myself slowing down on doing so, I’ll give myself a mental kick in the pants to start it up again.

To paraphrase the beer pitchman, Stay curious, my friends.

7

At forty, I’m getting the same way.

When I first got into computers, I could have told you pretty much everything about it - chipset, clock speed, bus speed, HDD size, the works. The computer I have now? Eh, it’s an Intel i5 I think. With a 500gb HDD? Whatever. It’s just not important to me anymore. What is important is that it does the job I need it to do. I do retain the knowledge and skills to know when it’s not working as well as it should be, and to fix it accordingly.

I think, like Broomstick says, it’s a case of filtering. When you’re young (even in your twenties), the brain is like a sponge and and wants to suck up as much information as possible. When you get older, you realise that it’s not necessary, or even important, to know everything about everything. Knowing what’s inside my PC case isn’t going to make any difference to my life (until I need to fix/upgrade it - in which case it’s easy enough to find out), so I’d rather use my brain for stuff that is important to me - like knowing how to get the best out of the programs I’m using on it.

8

I’ve been thinking along similar lines recently. Mostly because of my Netflix habits. Anyone else find themselves treating Netflix like a video store? The other thing I’ve noticed is that new things aren’t really aimed at me anymore. At 47, the world is only interested in selling me cars, financial products, experiences and fear.

9

I never cared much about the latest technology even during my youth. I guess I’m just an old soul or lacking in curiosity. I was excited about walkie talkies and CB radio lingo when I was a kid, but I guess my curiosity died off by puberty. However, I do know how to program a TV show with the DVR feature, so at least there’s that.

10

I’m 62 and still love learning about new things. I have preferences (strong ones), but that doesn’t stop me from looking at something new and trying to figure it out.

11

I find I now filter new things by whether the effort to learn them will improve my life enough to bother.

12

I suspect - strongly - that a certain amount of it is purely an energy thing.

My mom is a good example of this. For most of my life, she was always the one who wanted to try something new and chivvied the rest of us into doing it with her. Now that she’s aging, she has less energy for it than she used to - at least partially because the vast, vast majority of her time and energy has been diverted to dealing with her and my dad’s (mostly my dad’s) medical care. She is - by her own firmly and repeatedly stated choice and in the face of increasingly urgent offers of assistance - the sole caretaker for my father, who has advanced Alzheimer’s (and was diagnosed over a decade ago).

Essentially all of her time and energy is being taken up by dealing with that - so she had to be dragged into using (for example) a smart phone (which she now loves) because the thought of having yet One More Task (learning how to use her smart phone) was just too goddamn much for her.

13

At 61, I fell like I’m still learning and growing, and solving new problems and challenges.

But I don’t feel it’s necessary for me to keep up with the latest tech stuff as part of that. Computers, phones (smart and otherwise), tablets, etc. are tools. They’re means to an end, not ends in themselves.

Sure, they can be all-purpose tools once you figure out how to use them, but if the only thing a tablet’s giving me that I don’t already have with a laptop is being able to access the Web from more places (and somewhat more conveniently in the form of apps), then I’ve got other things to do. I can learn about the Cascadia subduction zone with the technology I’m already comfortable with; I don’t need a tablet for that.

14

I guess beyond my own attitudes, it’s been seeing the contrast between my in-laws and my parents with respect to technology and new things that’s made me wonder.

In laws: Former electronics tinkerer (FIL- 75) and a civil servant(69-MIL). Have very little interest in technology in general. They both have iPhones, but they turn the damn things off all the time. Texting them is kind of fruitless, because they may or may not have their phone on for hours at a stretch. Can’t use their DVR to save their lives. Are stupid-paranoid about internet security. To the point where I once told my MIL that being so paranoid was dumb, because anyone who wanted their financial records and knew who they were, would just come to the house, kick in the front window, rifle through the file cabinets, and leave, instead of trying to hack a minor firewall and encrypted files, in hope that something might be there. I really think they’d be lost without printed phone books. MIL tends to buy consumer stuff for the sole reason of that’s what her mother bought, and what she’s used to.

My parents, who are slightly younger (70 (dad), 66 (Mom)), have an iPad, 2 smartphones (one android, one iPhone, several computers, including a Mac, and a PC, can use their DVR like crazy, have an Apple TV gizmo that they can use, but generally don’t because they don’t watch movies often, and a Skype camera as part of their TV. They’re not awesome at the administrative side of actually wiring stuff up and keeping all the passwords straight, but they can definitely use the stuff, and love the idea of online ordering, and looking things up. Even my mom, who’s a retired special-ed pre-k teacher, realizes all the great stuff she can look up and do online, and is forever emailing photos and stuff of things they do, and of my kids when they visit, etc… Mom also is kind of an inveterate tryer-of-new-stuff at the grocery store. Just about every trip, I’ll get a comment like “Have you tried that new X? It’s better than Y that I used to use.”, or “Don’t bother with X. It’s not any better than Y, and it’s twice the price.”

Basically, both sets of parents are kind of set in their ways, but mine are… not quite so inflexibly set- things that wouldn’t bother my folks tend to discombobulate my in-laws. Which is interesting, because my parents are the ones with the health and mobility issues, so you’d think they’d be less flexible.

15

Older people learn a bit differently. When presented with something new they first compare it to something they already know. Usually it is similar to something they have used, such as a DVR to a Betamax. Then its. “Oh right a tape machine.” If they get what they consider good use out of it, why learn the fancy bells and whistles?
OTOH if its is really new they will learn it just like anyone would.

16

In grad school, I studied Machine Learning (I swear this is relevant). Anyway, for any interesting problem, whether it’s playing Warcraft or finding the right combination of metals to produce the strongest alloy, there’s a large solution space to search through. Say, for the allow problem, you might try 99% lead, 1% tin, 0% copper, 0% carbon, and 0% titanium, and then next you’d text 98% lead, 1% tin, 1% copper, 0% carbon, and 0% titanium, and then next you’d… this would take forever, especially if you actually had to mix those metals, wait for them to cool, and test them out. So we use heuristics to narrow down the search space, like " 4% copper in every combination is weaker than 3% copper in every combination, so copper must not be good past 3% since the metal starts to weaken, so there’s no point in testing 5% copper through 100% copper alloys."

There’s another variable called “exploration vs. exploitation”. Exploration means you try lots of different things to see if you hit upon something useful. Exploitation means you keep trying something that’s known to work. Turns out in many machine learning problems, it’s good to start with a high exploration factor and low exploitation factor (when you know nothing about the solution space), and gradually move to a low exploration factor and high exploitation factor as you discard the solutions that suck and focus on refining the solutions that have good results.

Same with humans. When you’re little, you have no idea how things work, so you have a high exploration factor to try new things and figure out what works. As you get older, you quit trying new things and focus on stuff that you know works. This was probably fine in the year 862, when raising cows from one year to the next didn’t really change. It’s more problematic in 2015, when newer and better stuff comes out on a weekly basis.

17

I wonder if older people are more likely to be afraid of looking stupid than young people are. Young people do a lot of their learning in school, where you are encouraged to ask questions, where everyone is just as “dumb” as you are. But when you’re all grown up, you don’t have that patient teacher guiding you patiently, providing assurances that you’re not stupid.

18

Is the question about being curious about new technology, or curiosity in general? I’m 61 and I don’t have any burning desire to dig in to tech stuff very deeply, but I love tracking down information about historical and cultural stuff that catches my fancy (not to mention following the resulting tangents that I encounter).

19

Actually, this is an interesting question. I’ve got a very strong technical background, but I find that I (in the last half of my fifth decade) have a declining interest in learning new technology. Not just the latest new-kids-on-the-block technologies that will be here today and gone tomorrow, but even technologies that would be actually useful.

The best example I can think of is Photoshop. I do a lot of photography and often have to prepare photos for printing. I restrict my processing to very basic exposure, saturation, and sharpening. I’m sure my results would be much better if I sat down and really studied how to process Raw images, how to use layers, and spent some time getting profiles for all my printing papers. But I can’t be arsed to do it. I can’t tell if this is lack of energy, lack of motivation, or if I’ve just spent all the plastic neurons I had left on learning how to program the Tivo. I’m going to guess that it’s a little bit of A, a little bit of B, a dash of C, and a hefty helping of “this software was designed by idiots”.

On the other hand, I mostly photograph critters, and I can identify by sight (and, on a good day, sound) birds that I didn’t even know existed five years ago.

20

Oh, wow. Did you have unicorns in that dream childhood of yours?