P.T. Barnum once said, “There’s a sucker born every minute.” According to a study published recently in the journal Frontiers in Neuroscience, however, it turns out that he was being conservative. In fact, in the U.S. alone, there’s a sucker born just about every 8 seconds. And in case you didn’t catch it, that covers all of us.
OK, let me back up.
The researchers in the study I mentioned were poking around the human brain recently and pinpointed an area that they think is responsible for making us doubt. It’s a small section of that softball-sized lobe in the front of your head called the prefrontal cortex. But here’s an even more interesting bit: The docs are pretty certain that area doesn’t really get up and running until we reach our late teens or maybe early twenties. Then, after working just fine for a few decades or so, that discerning chunk of grey matter starts losing it power later in life. That means that when you’re pretty young or pretty old, you tend to be a little more, shall we say, gullible.
So all you parents who are up in arms when your teens swallow some silliness on the Internet hook, line and sinker can relax now. The kids’ choices don’t mean that they’ve suddenly gone brain dead. Turns out their brains have been dead all along. (At least the doubting part.)
Seriously, though, the study does shine some light on a few things we may have been wondering about. For instance, it could very well be that advertisements, political tactics, e-mail pitches and the like that are aimed at younger and older demographics are much more effective because that doubting segment of their brain isn’t chugging along at full capacity. When kids hear about the great highs of some new hold-your-breath-till-you-pass-out fad online, or Grandma gets an e-mail from an unknown gentleman on another continent pleading for money, they’re both more apt to believe it’s all true.
So I guess until the scientists come up with ways to get our brains working earlier or keep them running in tip-top shape longer, it’ll be up to all the rest of us to help out those on both ends of the age scale when it comes to the Barnum-style hucksters of today. Either that, or we can wait ’til the space aliens land and take care of all our problems for us.
Don’t believe in space aliens? Don’t worry, you will.
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