As we know, people tend to become less social as they age. However, scientists have now revealed that we are not alone in this trend. It turns out that many animals experience the same phenomenon, and interestingly, for them, this tendency often has more benefits than drawbacks. “Overall, it seems there is a general pattern: people become less sociable as they get older. But many animals also become less social with age,” noted Dr. Josh Firth, the lead author of research on this topic at the University of Leeds in the UK.
Recently, several research teams made intriguing discoveries about the relationship between age and social interactions among various animal species. As the editor of a series of 16 articles recently published in a special issue of the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of Biological Sciences, Firth emphasized that studying changes in animal social behavior as they age has distinct advantages. Scientists can observe animals throughout their entire lives and conduct experiments, which is quite challenging when it comes to humans. He also reminded us that older adults are less socially connected because they don’t need to share information in the same way that younger people do. However, today, virtual technologies help mitigate the downsides of isolation.
What did the researchers discover? Authors of one published study analyzed data on more than 150 different animal species and found that more social species tend to live longer. They also spend more time on reproduction and have longer reproductive windows, as reported by The Guardian.
In another study, scientists examined six years of data on house sparrows (the most common species of sparrows living near humans). They found that older birds have a narrower social circle. They are less connected to one another, likely because their peers are dying of age-related causes. Meanwhile, a modeling study focused on the social interactions of rhesus macaques showed that older animals can reduce their risk of developing diseases, particularly serious ones for their age group, by having less connectivity in their social networks. Interestingly, scientists reached similar conclusions when studying the infection of adult female red deer with parasitic infections. “We found that overall, the likelihood of nematode infection increases with age, but this can be avoided by limiting social interactions,” Dr. Firth stated.