The one point of contention I have with the article is about older programmers 'thinking more slowly'. This is again reiterated in the comments below the article. This is not true, we actually learn faster as we get older as long as we stay mentally active. In other words, we 'learn how to learn'. There are things that I can grasp now so easily that eluded me when I was 20. If you can't think faster and learn easier when you are 40 than when you were 20, you aren't exercising your mind enough.
There's a reason why the best lawyers are NOT those right out of law school as a general rule.
This is a very good point. 'Thinking more slowly' isn't a problem in any other field.
I think that in software development, a lot of the time, 'thinking more slowly' with age is actually thinking more carefully. You have more experience, therefore you have a larger knowledge base; so of course it takes longer to query. It also means that you get better answers, rather than the first answer that pops into your head. At 26, for me to get the same type of results, I imagine that I might have to do some research.
Do you have any examples of what you do to stay mentally active? It also seems important to keep physically active (from my experience with older guys, the ones who are thinking best are typically in the best physical condition).
I think perhaps the best way to answer how to stay mentally active with the question, posed to me, that got it through my own head.
Start by asking yourself this question:
Why do you think that time seems to speed up as we get older?
Now stop, and really think about that question. Don't skip ahead. Think of some possible reasons. It's a phenomenon that we all experience. What's the cause?
When we are preschool age, time seems to last forever. As we get older, the years start rolling by more quickly and I've been told by more than one person in their 70's that it never slows down, it only speeds up.
Why?
The answer is actually that we've 'been there, done that'.
When we are young, EVERYTHING is new. When we are experiencing something new, time seems to slow down, especially because we are enjoying it and taking in so much.
As we get older, our brains start to filter out what we have seen before. You know that feeling when you drive home and don't remember driving home or anything along the way? Boom. There you go. Your brain just ignored the trip.
Have you ever gone on a three day trip to some new place and felt like your were gone for two months? It's only three days, right?
Well, what you effectively do when you experience new things, you slow things down again. Your mind stays active, and here's the kicker...your brain actually figures out better, more efficient ways to move information around the synapses in your grey matter. No, that's not 'mumbo jumbo'. The reverse is also true, which is why once someone experiences depression, they are always susceptible to it. The brain learns the path to certain behavior.
This is why confidence mantras work. Want to make your mind more powerful every year from here on?
> Why do you think that time seems to speed up as we get older?
My theory: because each unit of time is a smaller relative percentage of our existence to date.
For example, to a 5-yr-old, one year is 20% of their lifespan, and seems to last a loong time. But to a 50-yr-old, one year is only 2% of their lifespan, and flies by.
This is everyone-and-their-pet-dog's theory, and it makes no sense. Why would the amount of time passed have any effect on the brain's time keeping mechanism?
It's probably because the brain gets worse at encoding memories as it ages, so fewer memories/unit time = faster time perception. Also, older people have slower cognitive tempo than younger people.
> The reverse is also true, which is why once someone experiences depression, they are always susceptible to it. The brain learns the path to certain behavior.
Damn. I’m officially cursed then; recent diagnosis of depression here due to midlife business failure. sigh
> You know that feeling when you drive home and don't remember driving home or
> anything along the way? Boom. There you go. Your brain just ignored the trip.
That's your brain entering a sleep state, and it's dangerous. Counter this by constantly sweeping your eyes across the road to stay alert.
I like everything else you wrote, but as a driver, motorcyclist, bicyclist, and pedestrian, I hate to think that people would view "no memory of my commute" as "my brain optimized it!"
I think you mean dissociation. I've seen studies indicating that brain activity in this state is equivalent to sleeping. Regardless, being behind the wheel in this state is dangerous.
I've experienced erasures of memory related to using the bathroom. "Did I flush?" I had. It's not like I wasn't conscious, just that my brain doesn't give a shit. I'm sure he's talking about a similar thing.
Sometimes "thinking more slowly" is just "thinking more" before diving in. And often, past experience makes it a lot easier to grasp similar new ideas.
But ignorance can also be an asset sometimes - it can allow you to evaluate ideas on their own merit without decades of baggage.
Like the OP said, you want both on your team (just like lawyers have).
There's a reason why the best lawyers are NOT those right out of law school as a general rule.