How Old Are You in Your Head?

KQED's Forum

KQED

Politics, News, News Commentary

4.6 • 656 Ratings

🗓️ 7 March 2023

⏱️ 56 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Atlantic staff writer Jennifer Senior is 53 in real life, but she says that in her head she’s "suspended at 36." That was the age she was secure professionally but still full of potential, paired up with her husband “but not yet lost in the marshes of a long marriage." In "The Age in Your Head," which appears in the April issue of the magazine, Senior explores the discrepancy many of us feel between our real age and our "subjective age" and why experiences like a pandemic or trauma can freeze us in time. Guests: Jennifer Senior, staff writer, The Atlantic - author of the article "The Age in Your Head." Her forthcoming book is "On Grief." Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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0:43.1	From KQED in San Francisco, I'm Mina Kim. Coming up on Forum, how old are you in your head?
1:07.1	Jennifer Sr. is 53 in real life, but she says she's 36 in her head.
1:12.6	And she's not alone. Adults over 40 often perceive themselves to be, on average, about 20%
1:18.6	younger than their actual age. Why is it that we can feel a discrepancy between our real age
1:24.6	and our so-called subjective age? Senior explores this in the April issue of the Atlantic and with us right after this news. Welcome to Forum. I'm Mina Kim. When Jennifer Sr. asked her 76-year-old mother, how old are you in your head?
1:56.3	Senior thought the question might sound a bit odd, but her mom answered right away and told her 45. That so
2:03.5	many of us have an immediate intuitive grasp of the concept of a subjective age made senior
2:09.1	curious, and her new piece in the Atlantic explores why people over the age of 25 often think of
2:15.7	themselves as younger than they are.
2:18.3	How old are you in your head, listener, compared to how old you really are and why?
2:23.3	You can tell us on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram at KQED Forum by calling 86673786
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