AGEISM
Listing a Person’s Age in an Article Instantly Creates Bias
For better or worse, you immediately form an opinion.
This morning, I watched a news story about a man (65) who fell through the ice and was rescued by his dog (age unknown).
My first thought was, “What the hell was that old fart doing out on an ice-covered pond?”
Now, if it was a younger man, my inherent age bias would have probably made me react more sympathetically to his plight. (I would still have been more worried about the dog.)
Maybe he was practicing his slap shot. Maybe he was doing parkour.
Once you notice that every entertainment and most news articles list a person’s age, you can’t stop seeing it.
In a People Magazine article speaking with Sir Anthony Hopkins about his role in Silence of the Lambs:
… the 86-year-old, who won his first Best Actor Oscar for playing the psychiatrist and psychotic cannibal in the 1991 film based on Thomas Harris’s 1988 bestseller, reveals he hasn’t seen the movie in “years.”
Why exactly do I need to know that Anthony Hopkins is 86 years old?
Well, according to a Quora bot, which is a stellar source of super reliable AI-generated gobbledygook:
Newspaper articles often include the ages of people they list or quote for several reasons. Firstly, providing the age of a person adds context to the information being presented, helping readers to better understand the individual’s background or relevance to the story.
Additionally, including ages can help to differentiate between individuals with the same name, especially in cases where there may be confusion.
Lastly, including ages can make the information more relatable to readers, as it helps to humanize the individuals mentioned in the article.
No, not that Sir Anthony Hopkins. A different Sir Anthony Hopkins.
I do agree that listing a person’s age adds context, and by “context”, I mean “preconceived ideas”.
A woman (74) getting into a car accident for reasons yet to be determined is a hazard and her keys should be taken away.
A woman (35) getting into a car accident for reasons yet to be determined may have been avoiding a deer or had a tire blow out, or maybe she was even on her phone. But no one is immediately asking why her family still “lets” her drive.
Listing people’s ages in articles clearly isn’t a trend that’s going away, but it’s interesting to examine and be aware of how your thinking shifts the second you see that number.
Because next time, it might be your name and age plastered across the screen.