If you ever feel like time is passing at the pace of a hadron collider, you can be sure you’re not the only one. Most of us feel that the passage of time is inevitable, and that it only makes us older (but also wiser, more confident and happy overall!).
Having said that, it's no secret that our modern society is obsessed with freezing and even turning back time. This ageing paranoia that’s sweeping across our society has been heavily fueled by social media, where young folks constantly put pressure on achievements, looks, and everything, really. Its competitive nature shows that someone is doing better and has accomplished more by your age than you have.
Being scared of ageing is not only nothing new, it seems like it creeps into the minds of younger generations obsessed with anti-ageing life choices earlier than ever in history. In 2018, a report from the Royal Society for Public Health (RSPH) found that millennials felt the most negatively towards ageing, viewing it as a steep decline and assuming dementia and loneliness as inevitable.
In some extreme cases where fear of getting older interferes with your life, doctors diagnose people with gerascophobia. “Gerascophobia sufferers have very frequent thoughts about changes in their appearance due to ageing and increasingly losing control over their life as they get older. These thoughts trigger panic attacks, shortness of breath, sweating and shaking," Dr. Rose Aghdami, a consulting and coaching psychologist, told Refinery29.
"Their behavior is affected too, as they often avoid certain activities which remind them of ageing, withdraw from social contact, and become more isolated."
The RSPH has also urged people to stop using the term 'anti-ageing' popularized by the beauty industry, since it could be putting pressure on women to see ageing as something inherently detrimental. Another 2017 study found that 30% of women under 35 were regularly using anti-wrinkle products, a fact that’s so obvious when browsing through social media that you don’t need a survey for it
#19 In The ‘80s, TV Stations Just Turned Off Late At Night. No Infomercials, Nothing. Just This
