by There are many changes that can come with old age – hair turns grey, eyesight is not as good, mobility often becomes limited. But apart from these physiological changes, people also experience changes in their social life. As we age, our social circles tend to get smaller.
Such reductions in social networks have raised concerns among scientists who are aware of the importance of social relationships to health and well-being. Being socially isolated can harm health as well as obesity, alcoholism or sedentary living.
In the last decade, however, scientists have begun to think that the shrinking of social networks with age might not be so bad.
Rather than social declines being driven solely by the death of friends or deteriorating health, people may become more selective in their social interactions as they age. After all, many older adults tend to focus their social efforts on family and close friends. This shift in social focus may result in older adults being aware of the limited time they have left and prioritizing their most important relationships.
As a behavioral and molecular ecologist, we were interested in understanding the evolutionary roots of these age-based changes in social focus.
To investigate whether other animals share these patterns of social selectivity with age, we turned to a free-roaming population of over 200 macaques on the island of Cayo Santiago in Puerto Rico. Together with our colleagues, we collected eight years of data on how these monkeys worked with each other as they aged.
We found striking similarities to the patterns of social aging seen in humans, and our study reveals the causes and possible consequences of shrinking social networks with age.
Picky partner choice
We focused specifically on female macaques, as they have the most stable long-term relationships in this population. With the help of several dedicated research technicians, we followed these females for up to seven hours a day over eight years.
First, we found that female macaques spent time with fewer social partners as they aged. Aging macaques sat next to fewer partners and also groomed fewer partners. Grooming is an important bonding behavior in macaques that females only perform at their best.
What is important is that this reduction in women’s social circles was not due to the death of their partners or to older monkeys being somehow undesirable and therefore to be avoided. We observed that the frequency with which other monkeys sought out older females as social partners did not change with age.
Instead, there seemed to be clear evidence that females were actively reducing the size of their social networks over time. Specifically, as females aged, they initiated interactions with fewer mates. We observed these declines starting among women who were in their prime (around age 10) all the way through those near the end of their lives (around age 28).
Family matter
Of course, an important piece of this puzzle is who these female macaques chose to interact with as they got older.
We found that, like humans, aging female macaques focused their time and efforts on family members and “friends” with whom they had a strong and stable bond.
Although this narrowing of networks and focus on friends and relatives is not necessarily due to macaques being aware of their impending death – scientists are not sure whether non-human animals have an awareness of their own mortality – suggests that there may be sharing. evolutionary cause of social selection in humans and other primates.
Why could this be?
One possibility stems from the fact that as humans and other mammals age, their immune systems decline. We get sick more easily and find it harder to recover when something gets us down.
Shrinking one’s social circle with age may be an important way to avoid disease or other illness. Such a reduction would not necessarily be a deliberate strategy, but could be an unconscious tendency selected over evolutionary time because it contributed to the biological fitness of our primate ancestors. As a result, this pattern may continue today, even in people long after their reproductive years.
An optimistic attitude
So what does this all mean? Understanding how people can live longer and healthier lives is a key priority for health organizations around the world. Figuring out how to maintain valuable social relationships in old age is likely to play a central role in that effort.
The results of this study suggest that network shrinkage across the lifespan is an aging pattern that is not unique to humans but may be present in other primates.
Although loneliness in the elderly is a health concern that should not be ignored, there may be an important distinction between those who are willingly isolated as they age and those who choose to stick to a social circle less. In the latter cases, shrinking networks with age might not be so bad.
Instead, there may be important benefits to being selective in our socialization as we age, allowing this pattern to continue for thousands of years.
This article is republished from The Conversation, a non-profit, independent news organization that brings you reliable facts and analysis to help you make sense of our complex world. It was written by: Erin Siracusa, University of Exeter and Noah Snyder-Mackler, Arizona State University
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Erin Siracusa has received or currently receives funding from the American Society of Mammalogists, the Arctic Institute of North America, the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, the National Institute of Health, and the European Research Council.
Noah Snyder-Mackler has received or is currently receiving funding from the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health, the Leakey Foundation, Arizona State University, and the University of Washington.
