People in their 40s and 50s are smarter than millennials in three key areas

Looking for work for a 50-year-old is much more difficult than for a 30-year-old. The statement is not surprising and is true almost everywhere in the world. In fact, according to a recent survey published in USA today, the number of employers looking to hire millennials is roughly double the number looking to hire millennials (children of Baby boomers, born between 1969 and 1980).

The preference is based on the fact that millennials work longer hours for less money, and is probably also related to the widespread belief that young people have a more agile mind than their older counterparts … “Young people are just smarter, ”said 22-year-old Mark Zuckerberg.

However, Goeffrey James details for INC, While there are certain types of thinking skills that peak in late adolescence, Harvard University has discovered areas of intelligence that peak between the ages of 40 and 50:

The study included several experiments with cognitive tests online. One of the tests conducted by the scientists involved 2,450 Americans from different backgrounds and places, completing 15 tasks ranging from math and vocabulary tests to drawing pictures. The results showed that although Most mental abilities, such as memory, story telling, and pattern recognition, peaked in the teenage years and early 1920s, but a few improved over time and reached their peak potency during adolescence.

Yes indeed, Research has concluded that there are three areas of intelligence – all critical to business success – where Gen Xers are much better:

1-Mathematics

Although people tend to forget the math they learned in school, the ability to do arithmetic calculations in your head increases with age, peaking in your mid-50s. “You might think that’s an unnecessary benefit, given that all phones have a calculator app. However, if you can do the math quickly in your head, you are less likely to be fooled with false statistics and more likely to spot obvious errors, for example in corporate spreadsheets, ”James cautions.

2- understand

As people reach their 50s, they accumulate useful knowledge on a wider range of topics and tend to improve understanding of complex and interrelated topics., as well as to explain these concepts to others. This explains why people in their 40s and 50s are better mentors than their younger counterparts, even though young people are quite bright.

3- Creativity

While there are examples of writers, composers, and artists doing their best work when they are young, it is much more common that very creative people do their best in their 40s and 50s (for example, almost all filmmakers). Since creativity is the source of innovation, companies that want to stay nimble in the face of global competition may be better equipped by hiring more Gen Xers and fewer Millennials.

The work also discovered that there are other skills that improve even when one is older: vocabulary, for example, reaches its peak in people between 60 and 70 years old…. So now we know why Grandpa is so good at crossword puzzles.

Another 2014 study by Canadian researchers at Simon Fraser University provided another look at the issue. They analyzed the data of 3,305 players aged 16 to 44 from a real-time strategy video game “Starcraft II” –

What they found was that the younger ones had significant advantages in certain tasks. For example, found that a 24-year-old was 150 milliseconds faster than a 39-year-old of the same caliber. So, they discovered that 24 years old is a key age, after which the players’ abilities slowly decline, losing around 15% speed every 15 years. However, older players performed better in some ways, making up for the sluggishness of brain processing with simpler and more efficient strategies. In other words: they were wiser.

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