
Set in Our Ways: Why change is so hard after our 20s - makimaki
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=set-in-our-ways&print=true
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mdasen
Is it that odd? Think of it like this: your 20s are like that new program in
Rails. Nothing holding you back. No legacy structures to support. Just
wonderful. But as life goes on, it starts looking more like that Java program
with jars everywhere, weird structures no one knows why they were made,
requirements that no longer make any sense. Eventually, you build up enough
cruft that you have Cobol programmers picking over lines just to keep you
running.

I'm in my 20s, but kinda lame so I'm already thinking about a house, what city
I'll end up in, planning for my retirement. Every one of these decisions locks
me into something. As I put money into retirement accounts, I become less
agreeable to changes in the tax code. For example, I'm not as for wonderful
new national pension since I've already locked money away for retirement. As I
lock myself into a city/area, I become less amenable to things like market
competition. For example, if I moved to Seattle for the long haul, I would
want the government to defend Boeing since its downfall would really hurt the
place I've invested myself in.

We achieve more ownership in the world as we age. It ties us into the
decisions of our past. Most importantly, at that point, a lot of change
becomes negative. One of my professors from college is teaching a course to
state Cobol programmers to teach them Java. They hate it. They just want to
hang on and not loose something rather than compete with young Java
programmers in a language they just learned.

We make changes as a society. Change is often very beneficial. It's often
opposed by those who have ownership before the change. Maybe we should take
into consideration how change adversely affects people and help them through
it - like the course teaching Cobol programmers Java so that they're still
skilled for modern systems. Yes, they're not so happy with the training, but
it keeps them relevant rather than simply letting them become skill-less as
Cobol programs get retired.

~~~
gruseom
Good post. Increasing investment in the status quo is a nice way to look at
this.

A long time ago someone made the point, which stuck in my mind, that all of
this is an argument in favor of death. If people didn't die, stuff wouldn't
change.

I think the habit-forming nature of human consciousness goes far deeper than
we've yet admitted. That might also explain why people change less as they age
- they've been around longer so habits have had longer to form. Gene Clark had
a great line, "The longer you're in one place, the harder it gets to leave."

~~~
cliffy
I recall a quote: 'Progress is made one death at a time.' but I can't remember
who said it.

~~~
gruseom
There's also a famous line from Max Born (or was it Planck) who said: New
ideas are accepted in science not because anyone changes his mind, but because
old scientists die. (I'm paraphrasing.)

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gruseom
Don't waste your time like I did. I'll summarize it for you:

People don't change as much after 30 because like maybe it's because they have
more responsibilities?

~~~
jwesley
Turning vague scientific studies into overpromising articles is a habit many
writers find hard to change.

~~~
bdotdub
Somehow they all find jobs at Scientific American

~~~
DaniFong
And New Scientist!

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martythemaniak
I recommend everyone see the Seven Up series
(<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_Up>!) as it is one of the best
documentaries ever made. In it, Michael Apted interviews a group of British
children from a variety of backgrounds every 7 years, from the time they are 7
until (currently) they are 49.

It is quite striking to see how people change and progress as they age, and
you can definitely see how little they change after their 20s in the series.

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raamdev
I think a lot of being "set in our ways" has to do with not accepting that we
might be wrong about something, or that we might not fully understand
something. As we age, we like to believe we know things and feel certain of
the way things are. As an infant, we quickly learn about gravity and come to
accept that it pulls things to the ground. We put our life in the hands of
that belief when we learn to walk. When we start making decisions in life, we
like to believe that we know enough to understand everything involved.

The older we age, the more we seem to be driven to find answers to things we
don't understand. When we find answers that seem to fit we find comfort in
locking them in place as pure fact, since they make future decisions that much
easier. Children _know_ they don't know, and therefore are more open to
learning, growing, and changing. Keeping this process going as we age involves
looking objectively at _everything_ and never accepting one answer as the only
answer.

I've already noticed myself being locked into a particular way: I've been
anti-social my entire life and I grew to accept that. I was happy with it, and
it didn't bother me. But recently I realized that the one thing I'm _not_ good
at should be the thing I work hardest at improving, otherwise how can I
continue to grow in life? Children are playful because they're constantly
curious, constantly asking questions. Hackers maintain this curiosity, this
questioning mentality, which is exactly why they're the ones at the frontier
of so many emerging technologies.

I'm only 26, so I'll just have to wait and see if my thinking is correct. :)

~~~
timr
I think that mdasen's comment is much closer to the truth. It isn't arrogance
or excessive confidence that makes people more conservative as they get older,
it's the investment, responsibilities, and ties they develop to the status
quo. These are the same reasons that people will keep trudging along in a job
that they _know_ that they hate -- the devil you know is better than the one
you've yet to meet.

Personally, I'm not becoming more arrogant or confident about what I know as I
get older; if anything, I'm less sure about most things. I certainly hedge a
lot more of my bets. The only bits of knowledge that I'll stridently defend
are really just higher-order patterns: happiness is more important than
wealth; hard work doesn't guarantee success; fads are fickle, etc.

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dhbradshaw
The title's accounting is a bit off:

"They found that openness increased modestly up to age 30 and then declined
slowly in both men and women. The survey results suggest that men begin
adulthood slightly more open to new experiences than women but decline in
openness during their 30s at a faster rate than women."

This puts 30 at the peak of openness and suggests that people may be as open
to change in their 30s as in their 20s.

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mmmurf
This hasn't been true for me at all. For me, leaving my 20s has been a great
motivator to try/do all kinds of new and different things.

