When it comes to vitality and longevity, messaging is more important than you may think.
In our society, growing older has become a journey fraught with negative messages. Age is
equated with limitations, elders are devalued and treated as invisible. Aging is equated with a
breaking body and fragile mind in our media and societal myths.
But that is not the truth of our experience. As we grow older, we grow more full and vital in our
capacities. We see more clearly and prioritize more deeply. A life that may have been filled
with anxiety and overwhelming responsibilities is now more crystalline and focused. However,
the negative messages of aging are so prevalent and so powerful that we begin to believe them.
We begin to feel invisible as we are treated that way. We begin to doubt our value and hobble
our creative expression. The result is that 82% of older Americans report encountering ageism
Recent studies in aging messages have revealed some profound results. Those with positive
aging. Those with negative aging views had 2x the heart attacks after age 60. Even with the risky genetic gene APOE, those with positive age beliefs were 47% less likely to develop dementia. The average age of the Nobel Prize winner is 65. Yet, we experience the invisibility of aging everywhere. Only 11% of all speaking characters in movies in 2016 are over the age of 60. And to prove the falseness of our media images, 90% of all centenarians were functionally
independent in their nineties. The results of negative aging images have immense consequences
on our society. We are not the picture of elders we have been led to believe in American culture.
Vital aging is almost invisible in our cultural messages. So what do we do about that? Adventures in Visual Storytelling is all about creating a structure in which students can come together and
make visual stories with a variety of imaginative modalities. In sharing their stories, students can
highlight creative expression, explore memory and experiences, and build community and
positive aging messages for themselves and others.
Comments