I went to a dinner party at which one topic of discussion was an impending government shutdown. A man in his 70s maintained that this was going to be a terrible event. I asked “Why would it be worse than all of the previous government shutdowns?” (Wikipedia has a list of 18 since 1976). His answer was the Republicans and Democrats in Congress had less of a “dialog” than before. I estimated that there was no way that the shutdown could last more than 45 days, on the grounds that “All politicians love to tax citizens and then spend the money; they just have a few disagreements around the edges.” I said that no previous shutdown had lasted more than 21 days (yay, smartphone!) and therefore 45 days would be a real statistical outlier. He persisted in arguing that American politics is completely different (and worse) than at any time in the past. (This was Cambridge, mind you, so 100 percent of the blame for the degradation is due to “crazy Republicans.”)
The government does seem to be shutting down, thus proving this guy right so far. But on the other hand I’m wondering why the situation seemed so much more dire to the oldest person at the table than to the younger guests. He’d lived through at least 17 previous shutdowns, not to mention a world war, and somehow everything that turned out all right.
Other old people that I know have access to the same news as young and middle-aged folks yet they are much more concerned about unusual weather and foreign conflict. If they are freaked out about floods I might point out that most of the world is enjoying sunshine. If they are freaked out about U.S. economic stagnation I will point out that the world is still improving because China is much more populous and their economy is growing robustly. If they are freaked out about the fact that various people in the Middle East hate each other I will point out that there are lots of peaceful parts of the world. None of my “look at the places that the news media isn’t bothering to cover right now” statements have ever helped.
So… for the readers…
- Am I correct in that the same events are more worrisome/upsetting to older Americans?
- If so, why? Given that they have fewer years of life expectancy, shouldn’t the potential for long-term damage be less frightening?
One of my theories is that people have only a fixed number of things that they can worry about. A person between 30 and 50 may use up all of his or her potential for worrying with job- and kid-related concerns. He or she simply doesn’t have leftover slots to care about Syria, Congress, the melting of assorted continents, etc. Once comfortably retired, however, and all children settled in their own homes, a person will naturally fill up those worry slots with issues from the media.
If my theory is correct the only sensible way to live in retirement is with a complete ban on news media.
[Oh yes, back to the shutdown. I’m going to go on record with a prediction that the future will look like the past. The average length of a previous shutdown was about 8 days. So I will predict that this shutdown lasts 8 days. If it lasts until the end of October I am going to invite all of my readers to join me at Margarita’s for a Taco Gigante on my dime! If it goes beyond the 45-day limit above, they won’t be doing Taco Gigantes anymore so I will host a blood donation party at Children’s Hospital in Boston.]
1) Older Americans are more dependent on government services and social programs like Social Security & Medicare. Most probably remember how seniors were a terribly poor class before the New Deal (of course, nowadays it is the opposite and working families who live in poverty).
2) Information theory teaches us the information (i.e. news) content is inversely proportional to rarity. Thus you shouldn’t worry about things that make the news, like terrorist attacks, but instead things that don’t, like fatalities from traffic accidents.
3) Avoiding news media helps with the health of investors’ portfolios. Why would it be different with mental and emotional well-being?
Stephen Covey had this great advice you should strive to make what you worry about coincide about what you influence (circle of concern vs. circle of influence). Since for most people government is beyond their control, it makes no sense to worry about it, you should just have contingency plans prepared, specially if you are a Federal employee or likely to be severely affected by a government shutdown.
That said, the level of irresponsibility of Congress is disgraceful. Even Belgium, a country that has at times gone for half a year without forming a government, managed to avoid it. It is a luxury permitted by the US’ preeminent position in the world economic order, any other country would swiftly and cripplingly be punished by the markets for shenanigans like these, as Greece was 2 years ago. We cannot afford to be complacent – the US could lose this priceless advantage overnight if it is not careful.
Maybe old people worry more about major catastrophes because they are less capable of dealing with them? (they don’t want to run out of money while they’re still alive, etc.)
Worry can be useful as it can alert people to the possibility of not everything going according to plan and not focus their investments on a single version of the future. And worry can be destructive if too much is invested… based on a single catastrophic scenario for the future.
As I read through, my first thought was “he’s merely paying more attention now”, and then there it was, your theory. I agree with it.
I agree in substance with Phil’s view. Distortions by news media are proximal causes of worry to people who have time to read and overreact. Yet there is another modern trend also in play. “Everything happens at the margins” is the theme of pundits everywhere. When a tech company misses its quarterly numbers, some analysts jump on this as the sign of doom. Game over. My guess is that our networks, including media, social networks, near-instant news cycles, have changed feedback timing properties and reduced buffering effects. There is less “slack” in the system, which tends to throw our collective decision-making into disarray. This might be another side to what Shirky calls our “information filters” and how we deal with all the amped-up sources.
“If my theory is correct the only sensible way to live is with a complete ban on news media.”
FTFY.
See “Avoid News” by Rolf Dobelli.
I think your theory is on the right track. There is a lot more news, from many more sources, available today and older people probably don’t have the natural cynicism towards the media that younger people do. They grew up trusting Walter Cronkite and Dan Rather. So they might be more inclined to believe the rantings of commentators they see on Fox or MSNBC, whereas younger people seem to implicitly understand that Bill O’Reilly’s job is to stir shit up, and it’s doubtful if he even believes everything he says.
My half-baked theory is that because older Americans are closer to death, they worry more. If you’re 75 years old and the next five years are going to suck, then the rest of your life is going to suck. If you’re 25 years old in the same situation, it will be over soon and you can live the rest of your life.
When I visit my scotch-irish great aunts and uncles in the mountains of Pennsylvania, people whose living rooms are 95-degrees in January because of the wood burning stove, they know they don’t like Obama but that’s about it. I’m sure they are not aware that a shutdown is afoot (frankly I didn’t realize it started until I read this post). If I were to start talking about the shutdown in front of them they wouldn’t really know what I was talking about, but they would enjoy my saying bad things about Obama (because he’s a 70’s protest movement left winger).
In my observation, older people often use their age to show off or give themselves credentials. It’s not unearned, but it’s a trump card those younger than them don’t have and so they can use what they have and others don’t. They are genuinely worried, but that worry is what they do with their lives at that point. I’m not denigrating that–the world needs Jeremiahs.
A 70 year old has watched his abilities decline for 40 years. He knows his body is falling apart. He remembers all the times in the past when he survived by being nimble and healthy and just toughing an adversity out. He knows from experience of half a dozen things he once lived through, that if they were to happen to him today, would kill him. He knows that if something falls apart for 30 days, electricity, water, availability of food or shelter, he’ll be among the first to die. He knows inflation will kill him. He knows that if the bank claims his money is theirs, he will die before he can prove otherwise. He knows that if leaders raise up a mob, and he gets in its path, he will be one of the first to die. Sure. you can tell him “run faster”, “go a week without your insulin”, “just suck it in and walk those fifty miles”, after all, you are not the one that’s going to die, are you? … not yet. But you ought to be more careful about drumming up hate, because once it gets loose, it is like a fire and burns everything in its path. Old people long for stability, because planning is everything in a world where your only way to survive is to spend down your savings.
I agree with COD. Seniors grew up with tv and still prefer it. They watch tv news, probably the worse news venue currently available, and which emphasizes the very lucrative (for them) horrors (to us).
As a second data point, my 75 year-old dad is probably the opposite of the gentleman you spoke of. He is less worried about stuff that happens today than he was when we were both younger. He has much more of a “it’s happened before, it’ll happen again” outlook than I do. As for the “why”, I think it’s because he’s lost a spouse and quite a few friends over the last decade. Facing mortality seems to have made him more concerned about living out the remainder of life with richness and generosity rather than worry and tentativeness.
I am not sure it the reason why older people generally worry more is that they have more time to read the news. Even if they didn’t have the time or the ability to read the news they may still worry more about other things they don’t read about in the news.
I spent the summer following my first year in college working as a kitchen helper and waiter in a restaurant in a small and remote village in the Pyrenees mountains in Spain, a very idyllic place. The restaurant was run by 3 sisters and their elderly mother also helped them. I remember one of the sisters once mentioned that, before they opened the restaurant, their mom used to worry a lot about everything because she had too much free time to just worry. Before the restaurant, I think she used to spend her days as a shepherd an didn’t have much to do while watching the animals other than thinking and finding things to worry about (I guess instead of worrying she could have just enjoyed the idyllic scenery but maybe somehow our brain is wired to worry …). I may be wrong, but I don’t think she spent the time reading the newspaper. For sure Internet access was not an option there at that time. But somehow she still found something to worry about. I was told things became much better (less worrying) once she started being busy with the restaurant, which meant she had less time to think and find things to worry about.
I can’t speak to why events are more worrisome to older folks. I presume it’s related to the grumpy old man stereotype. But probably the reason people think there’s something a bit different about this shut down is that it apparently is different: http://capitalgainsandgames.com/blog/stan-collender/2773/shutdown-different-most-others
There’s a name for this, irritable male syndrome.
If you were a retired person and all you did to fill your time was watch politics on tv or listen to NPR your thoughts would come from there, rather than from your own analysis. Given that the media lives by stirring people’s emotions (or else nobody would pay attention), there’s a strong likelihood that you’d simply be bombarded with negative news. So yes, you’d be worried to death over weather, politics, epidemics, wars and pretty much everything else the nice, well spoken, people on television or radio tell you about.
As for the “lack of dialog” between the two parties, I remember how in the early ’90s the ex-Communists from my native country would constantly complain about the same thing regarding the nascent opposition, and encouraged the elderly to vote for “silence” … Believe me my fellow Americans, you don’t want that in your country.
I agree with James Fallows, this situation is qualitatively different than earlier ones. Remember, in 1995 the Republicans had swept Congress in a massive political shift after 40 years of never controlling the House. They’re acting like that this time, when the reality is nothing like it.
Their position is very weak, but they don’t seem to realize it, which makes me worried it could be a long time before reality sets in. The fact that some are willing to risk the financial reputation of the U.S. as a political tactic is even more unsettling,and makes me wonder if they have a clue how to run anything, let alone a huge country.
As a longtime-Republican voter (from Texas, no less), I am really in a quandary. Sometimes I wonder what ever happened to all the Perot folks??
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2013/09/your-false-equivalence-guide-to-the-days-ahead/280062/
Nostalgia needs to be mentioned.
It’s easy to point to huge differences in politics over time. The 1964 Civil Rights act was passed with 80% Republican approval and strong leadership support. There was at the same time a Democratic Governor handing out axe handles to deal with civil rights protestors. There were also fierce opponents in the Republican party and strong support within Democrats (who voted 70% in favor). This variety within parties has changed dramatically.
Old folks with political memories may recall a time when a congressman’s priorities were: my district first, then my country, then my party. Now party concerns have moved to the front. Both parties have the clout to force a congressman to put party position on top.
Whether this is better or worse doesn’t matter to nostalgia. It’s very different. So all the good aspects of the old times are remembered, and all the problems forgotten.
The 1995 federal government shutdown got me five paid days off.