Do we become less sociable as we age?

It is generally believed that people become gradually less sociable as they grow older. Is this actually the case, and if so, what causes this change?

Excerpt: "It is generally believed that people become gradually less sociable as they grow older. Is this actually the case, and if so, what causes this change?

A new study published in the peer-reviewed journal PLOS One researchers sheds light on the connection between age and sociability by looking directly at changes within our brains. In this article we’ll go over the findings.

Researchers at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore conducted an in-depth analysis of brain scans from nearly 200 healthy adults aged 20 to 77. They explored how age-related changes in brain connectivity might explain shifts in social behaviour, specifically looking at resting-state functional connectivity, which refers to how different regions of the brain communicate when we're not actively focusing on specific tasks.

Their findings were revealing: as we age, significant changes occur in two critical sets of brain connections. Connections within the limbic-insular and ventral attention-somatomotor networks strengthen as we get older, and these increased connections are notably linked with reduced sociability.

Conversely, connections involving frontoparietal and default mode networks weaken with age, also correlating with lower sociability. This means the brain's natural ageing process directly affects our ability to socialize effectively.

Simply put, it isn't just getting older that reduces our social interactions; specific and measurable changes within our brains contribute significantly to this phenomenon.

Interestingly, this aligns with the "social brain hypothesis," proposed by anthropologist Robin Dunbar, which suggests that our ability to manage social relationships is closely tied to brain structures. As these brain connections become less efficient, our capacity to maintain broad social networks naturally diminishes."