HendryTan

LG has put up a statement: "UNDERSTANDING PRIVACY ON LG SMART TVS" at https://www.lg.com/global/newsroom/news/statements/statement-understanding-privacy-on-lg-smart-tvs/ Press has also followed up on the report. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/9/10/lg-defends-smart-tv-features-amid-audio-surveillance-allegations https://www.theverge.com/tech/994333/lg-responds-to-tv-spying-allegations

We had some network issues in the morning. Please clear cache and try again.

1. What phrase did you search for ? 2. Test a. Try search in private mode b. Try to search for a word like: Massage .

1. We will throttle the Search - when too many search are done in quick succession. - too many people are using search simultaneously. 2. Suggest you lay off for some time and then re-try again.

https://mitsloan.mit.edu/ideas-made-to-matter/ai-financial-advice-surprisingly-good-especially-if-you-ask-right-questions AI AI everything. MIT Sloan school published the following which I thought would benefit financial noobs. ____________________________________ AI financial advice is surprisingly good — especially if you ask the right questions By Betsy Vereckey Jul 21, 2026 7 minute read What you’ll learn: AI financial advice encourages people to save more, diversify their investing, and take on less risk as they age. However, AI’s advice often fails to properly adjust to shocks like unemployment, and it allows portfolios to drift rather than actively rebalancing them. Differences in prompts can lead to variation in advice, based on gender, degree of financial literacy, and familiarity with using large language models. People are increasingly turning to artificial intelligence for financial advice, but will following it improve their financial standing? “Half of Americans say they are using AI to get financial advice, but we know very little about what kind of advice they’re getting and whether they’re acting on it,” said Taha Choukhmane, an assistant professor of finance at the MIT Sloan School of Management and co-author of a new paper that measures and analyzes the quality of financial advice given by large language models. Research by Choukhmane and co-authors showed that following AI recommendations can result in sizable saving buffers for virtually all individuals above age 30. AI consistently advised people to save during their working years, draw down savings in retirement, invest heavily in diversified stock funds, and reduce stock exposure after age 45. However, AI chatbots were less successful in adjusting to shocks like unemployment, and they allowed portfolios to drift rather than actively rebalancing them. The quality of financial advice given by LLMs improved when the researchers introduced more structured prompts, but the AI still often generated too little active portfolio rebalancing. How the study was conducted The researchers built a model reflecting how people’s incomes, jobs, investments, and taxes typically evolve over their lives, which gave them a benchmark for what “good” financial decisions look like. Then they asked a sample of 1,000 adults to write their own prompts seeking spending and investing advice from GPT-5.2, GPT-5.6, or Gemini 3 Flash. Next, they simulated what would happen if people from 22 to 89 years of age followed that advice over time, repeatedly asking AI these same types of questions and following its advice on spending, saving, and investing. How the researchers define “academic prompt” An academic prompt is one that asks the LLM to give regulated professional financial advice, references life cycle planning and the user’s best interests, and provides explicit information about all of the simulated individual’s relevant financial conditions and explicit assumptions about the economic environment. Finally, they repeated the exercise using well-written academic prompts that included full financial information and clear assumptions. These more-detailed prompts included information on the individual’s age, job status, income, and savings balances, along with assumptions about the economic environment. The authors compared the simulated advice (what would happen if regular people followed the AI recommendations from the prompts they gave) to what people were already doing financially without the help of AI. They also compared the simulated advice to the academic prompt. The results showed that LLMs can offer an affordable, widely accessible source of financial guidance that can help users overcome the significant costs, biases, and conflicts of interest associated with traditional human financial advisors. Breaking down the findings Overall, the researchers found that the financial advice given by LLMs over time is good but gets better when the questions are asked in an academic fashion, and that the models have strengths and weaknesses. 1. AI encourages smart financial behavior. LLM advice was better than the scholars expected, regardless of whether the prompts were written by regular users or by academics. It steered people toward higher savings, increased participation in the stock market, and promoted well-diversified allocations and age-appropriate risk-taking. “We were somewhat surprised by how good the advice was,” Choukhmane said. “Especially when you read the kind of questions people asked, it was not a given that the advice would line up with what academics think are good financial principles.” 2. AI misses important nuances. Better prompts could help. The LLMs’ advice fell short on more subtle aspects of good financial planning. It tended to rely on simple rules of thumb for saving and spending and didn’t adjust well enough when circumstances changed. For example, it advised people who had experienced a job loss to cut spending too sharply, even when they had savings. The way people ask questions is part of the problem. A typical prompt might read: “Where should I invest starting with $50 and consistently adding $25 a month after?” When a more detailed, structured “academic” prompt was used, the LLM performed better. For example, an academic prompt might tell the chatbot to assume normal life expectancy, living expenditures, retirement age, employment risk, and income risk, and to assume that current U.S. tax law and Social Security rules will not change. “Regular people are not writing their prompts the way a finance professor is,” Choukhmane said. 3. AI advice varies depending on the user, which can lead to wealth gaps. The authors found that LLMs’ advice differs depending on the prompter’s gender, financial literacy, and experience, leading to meaningful gaps in retirement wealth. Following the advice in response to prompts written by men, more financially literate users, or those with prior AI experience generated about 5% more wealth close to retirement. Specifically, The LLM recommended higher equity allocations in response to prompts written by men and by individuals with high financial literacy. Over the life cycle, such differences in investment advice compounded into roughly $50,000 (4%) lower wealth at age 60 for women and for less financially literate users. The LLM recommended lower saving rates in response to prompts written by individuals who had not previously used AI for financial advice. Following the advice left them with almost $100,000 (6%) less wealth at age 60 than individuals with prior AI experience. These differences come from two sources, Choukhmane said. First, different users asked different kinds of questions and often brought up different topics. Women, for example, were more likely to use words such as “family,” “grocery,” and “pay” in their prompts, while men used words like “strategy,” “crypto,” and “growth,” he said. Second, the model may give different advice even when the underlying question is the same. In the case of gender, about two-thirds of the gender gap in wealth outcomes could be attributed to differences in how men and women wrote their prompts, while the remaining third came from the model changing its advice when the same prompt was labeled as coming from a woman rather than a man. That latter pattern could reflect the LLM making reasonable inferences about how preferences or circumstances vary by gender — which, ideally, the model could make explicit to users, Choukhmane said — or it could reflect biases learned from training data. The challenge with AI financial advice is that there are no clear benchmarks, Choukhmane said. Only when there is an accepted framework for how advice should vary with demographics will LLMs be capable of progressing in the right direction. He said he remains hopeful that will happen. In addition, it’s important to remember that not all variation in advice is problematic, Choukhmane said. For example, “we want [the LLM] to have different bias because men and women are different and have different life expectancy and income risk,” he said. Takeaways for consumers Beyond being mindful of bias, and, for the time being, asking LLMs to guard against it, success boils down to smarter prompts. Prompts grounded in life-cycle planning, portfolio theory, and real-world financial assumptions improved advice on spending and saving and cut down on basic, rule-of-thumb answers. “I think the real challenge is, how do we make sure that AI financial advice delivers for people who don’t have [a] level of financial literacy and who don’t write prompts perfectly?” Choukhmane said. One idea for people interested in using AI for financial advice is to start by using AI as a tool for building financial understanding rather than simply following its advice. AI can serve as a good complement to working with a financial advisor — someone you might meet with twice a year — because it can help you implement the advice they give you in real time, Choukhmane said. And for people who don’t have the money to work with a human financial advisor, AI is a good way to get advice inexpensively. “A lot of the people who would benefit from financial advice are precisely the people who don’t have a lot of resources,” he said. Takeaways for business As consumers increasingly turn to LLMs for financial advice, providers may need to rethink how customers learn about their products. The study found that LLMs often recommended specific account types, financial products, and providers that respondents themselves did not mention. (For example, Vanguard investment products appeared in 6% of LLM responses, and iShares products appeared in 3.4%, even though fewer than 0.4% of prompts mentioned either company.) That suggests that AI advice might be changing how people find and compare financial products, Choukhmane said. For financial firms, attracting customers’ attention may depend less on traditional marketing or search visibility and more on whether and how their products are described by LLMs when consumers seek advice. “AI Financial Advice: Supply, Demand, and Life Cycle Implications,” which won the Swiss Finance Institute Outstanding Paper Award 2026, was written by Taha Choukhmane, Weidong Lin, and Matthew Akuzawa from MIT Sloan and by Tim de Silva from the Stanford Graduate School of Business.

https://news.gallup.com/poll/656708/lgbtq-identification-rises.aspx February 20, 2025 LGBTQ+ Identification in U.S. Rises to 9.3% Bisexual identification most common; younger adults more likely to identify as LGBTQ+ by Jeffrey M. Jones WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Gallup’s latest update on LGBTQ+ identification finds 9.3% of U.S. adults identifying as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender or something other than heterosexual in 2024. This represents an increase of more than a percentage point versus the prior estimate, from 2023. Longer term, the figure has nearly doubled since 2020 and is up from 3.5% in 2012, when Gallup first measured it. LGBTQ+ identification is increasing as younger generations of Americans enter adulthood and are much more likely than older generations to say they are something other than heterosexual. More than one in five Gen Z adults -- those born between 1997 and 2006, who were between the ages of 18 and 27 in 2024 -- identify as LGBTQ+. Each older generation of adults, from millennials to the Silent Generation, has successively lower rates of identification, down to 1.8% among the oldest Americans, those born before 1946. LGBTQ+ identification rates among young people have also increased, from an average 18.8% of Gen Z adults in 2020 through 2022 to an average of 22.7% over the past two years. Gallup has observed smaller growth in the percentage of LGBTQ+ identifiers in some older generations over the same time period. This includes a nearly two-point increase among millennials (from 10.3% to 12.0%) and a one-point increase among Generation X (from 3.8% to 4.8%). There has not been meaningful change among baby boomers or the Silent Generation. Subscribe Today Get Gallup Newsletters & Immediate Release Alerts The latest results are based on interviews with more than 14,000 U.S. adults across all 2024 Gallup telephone surveys. Each respondent is asked whether they identify as straight or heterosexual, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender or something else. Overall, 85.7% say they are straight, 5.2% are bisexual, 2.0% are gay, 1.4% are lesbian and 1.3% are transgender. Just under 1% mention some other LGBTQ+ identity, such as pansexual, asexual or queer. Five percent of respondents decline to answer the question. Among the nearly 900 LGBTQ+ individuals Gallup interviewed last year, more than half, 56%, said they were bisexual. Twenty-one percent said they were gay, 15% lesbian, 14% transgender and 6% something else. These figures total more than 100% because the survey allows respondents to report multiple LGBTQ+ identities. The overall estimate of 9.3% of U.S. adults who identify as LGBTQ+ counts each respondent only once, even if they have multiple identities. One reason for higher LGBTQ+ identification among younger generations of adults is that they are much more likely to consider themselves bisexual than are older people. In fact, more than half of Gen Z (59%) and millennial (52%) LGBTQ+ people are bisexual. That drops to 44% among LGBTQ+ people in Generation X, and is less than 20% among baby boomers (19%) and Silent Generation (11%) LGBTQ+ adults. Older LGBTQ+ people are most likely to identify as gay or lesbian. LGBTQ+ Identification Higher Among Women, Liberals, Urban Residents Beyond generation and age, LGBTQ+ identification differs by gender, political orientation and urbanicity. Whether due to political sorting or something else, Democrats (14%) and independents (11%) are far more likely than Republicans (3%) to identify as LGBTQ+. Even stronger differences are seen by ideology, with 21% of liberals, compared with 8% of moderates and 3% of conservatives, saying they are lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender. Ten percent of women versus 6% of men say they are LGBTQ+; the difference is mostly because women are more likely than men to say they are bisexual. Between 1% and 2% of U.S. adults identify their gender as nonbinary; of this group, about eight in 10 identify as LGBTQ+. The gender gaps are especially pronounced in the younger generations -- 31% of Gen Z women versus 12% of Gen Z men, and 18% of millennial women versus 9% of millennial men, identify as LGBTQ+, with most of these younger women saying they are bisexual. LGBTQ+ identification is higher among people living in cities (11%) and suburbs (10%) than in rural areas (7%). College graduates (9%) and nongraduates (10%) are about equally likely to identify as LGBTQ+. Differences in LGBTQ+ identification by racial, income, marital status, parental status and religious subgroups reflect age skews among those subgroups. For example, younger adults are less likely than older U.S. adults to be higher income, to be married, to have children, to be religious or to be Non-Hispanic White. Those groups, in turn, have lower rates of LGBTQ+ identification than lower-income, unmarried, nonparent, nonreligious and non-White Americans. Bottom Line In the 12 years that Gallup has been tracking LGBTQ+ identification, it has nearly tripled, as those becoming adults during that period have been far more likely than their elders to say they are lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender. The recent increase is largely due to more adults in their late teens, 20s and 30s -- particularly young women -- saying they are bisexual. But younger adults are also more likely than older adults to identify as lesbian, gay, transgender or other nonheterosexual orientations. The rate of LGBTQ+ identification is likely to continue to grow, given the generational shifts underway.

Closing this mega topic with 1.5K pages as it slows down the machines. Continue at https://www.blowingwind.io/forum/topic/129876-looking-for-giving-or-receiving-blowjob-get-suck-be-sucked-compiled/

Closing this Mega Topic. Continue new posts at https://www.blowingwind.io/forum/topic/129867-looking-for-meetups-in-malaysia/

https://cnalifestyle.channelnewsasia.com/wellness/glp1-drugs-ozempic-longevity-585541 ______________________________________________________________________________ Are Ozempic and other weight loss drugs also longevity drugs? Here's what early research suggests Experts are intrigued by the theory. Here’s what early research suggests. 12 Jul 2026 07:11AM A theory that GLP-1 medications such as Ozempic or Zepbound might help people live longer has been bandied about by biohackers and ageing researchers for several years. Online pharmacies already market compounded versions of the drugs to purportedly extend health span. But so far, academic research into that hypothesis has been scant. One of the first studies putting the idea to the test was published last month. It showed that, among people with HIV and lipohypertrophy (fatty deposits that develop under the skin), taking semaglutide (the drug in Ozempic) for eight months seemed to slow participants’ biological ageing, according to blood tests that measure age-related biomarkers. People with HIV experience accelerated ageing because of the infection, so they are a good population in which to conduct age-related research, said Michael Corley, an associate professor of medicine at UC San Diego’s Stein Institute for Research on Aging, who led the study. The trial was preliminary, but it “provided us an opportunity to say, hey, is there any signal here that warrants all the hype?” Corley said. That hype stems from several lines of evidence. First, there is ample research demonstrating that GLP-1s improve people’s metabolic health by helping to regulate insulin and blood sugar and causing weight loss. Several studies show that they also benefit cardiovascular, liver and kidney health. Because the drugs offer protection for conditions like diabetes and cardiovascular disease, which are both among the leading causes of death, it could already be reasonable to call GLP-1s longevity drugs. “GLP-1 agonists decrease the incidence of diseases that are related to ageingand are associated with decreasing lifespan,” said Dr Nicolas Musi, director of the Diabetes and Aging Center at Cedars-Sinai in Los Angeles. “One would assume that they’re also potentially going to increase lifespan and be beneficial for longevity,” he added. Another reason experts think these drugs might increase longevity is because of how they affect cellular health. Metabolic health and ageing are intricately linked, so drugs that alter the mechanisms involved in metabolism may also affect how the body ages. “Many of these pathways that are modulated by diabetes drugs are also central pathways that control ageing and longevity,” Musi said. (Other drugs that treat diabetes, like metformin and a category known as SGLT2 inhibitors, are similarly being studied for longevity, though the evidence so far has been mixed.) GLP-1s appear to influence other fundamental cellular changes that occur with aging, most notably inflammation. “We know they have a significant anti-inflammatory effect, and we know inflammation is one of the things that accelerates aging,” said Dr Thomas Blackwell, a professor of general internal medicine at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston. All of this sounds promising, but researchers say there’s a huge caveat: Currently little to no data exists on whether the drugs will benefit people who are metabolically healthy. There is not even data available about whether the medications extend lifespan in rodents. Dr Richard Miller, a professor of pathology at the University of Michigan, who runs a large programme there testing potential anti-ageing drugs in mice, said that’s mainly because of logistics. Currently available GLP-1s either don’t work in mice the same way they do in humans, or can be delivered only via injection, and giving mice weekly injections for years is not practical. There are also concerns that GLP-1s negatively affect health in ways that are especially relevant for aging. Most notably, the drugs can cause some muscle loss, a major issue for older adults that is associated with an increased risk of frailty. Rapid weight loss can also lead to a decline in bone density and an increased risk of osteoporosis. A few clinical trials that are testing GLP-1s on several biomarkers of ageing, such as inflammation levels and biological age clocks, as well as on functional abilities such as strength and walking speed, are finally getting underway. At least one of the studies still will not be conducted on healthy older adults, though, since the participants need to meet the criteria for receiving a prescription for the weight loss medications, said Blackwell, who is leading the trial. But he added that those criteria – for example, a body mass index of 27 or greater and a related health condition, like high blood pressure – reflect “a whole lot of Americans.” For now, experts generally don’t recommend taking the medications off label for longevity. “In patients that are otherwise healthy, at this point, I think it’s premature, because there are no data justifying it from preclinical or clinical studies,” Musi said. In Blackwell’s case, the message seemed to be: Do as I say, not as I do. He has been taking tirzepatide (the drug in Zepbound) for the past year with the goal of slowing ageing. "Do I know that that’s the right thing? I do not,” he said. “Do I recommend that for patients? I do not.” “This is my own personal decision,” he added. By Dana G Smith © The New York Times Company

Do you turn to ChatGPT and other AI for Relation / Social Issues ? In a recent study published in the journal Science, the authors report that AI models offer affirmations more often than people do, even for morally dubious or troubling scenarios. And they found that this sycophancy was something that people trusted and preferred in an AI — even as it made them less inclined to apologize or take responsibility for their behavior. The findings, experts say, highlight how this common AI feature may keep people returning to the technology, despite the harm it causes them. Science: Sycophantic AI decreases prosocial intentions and promotes dependence https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.aec8352 _______________________________________________________________________________________________________ https://www.npr.org/2026/04/23/nx-s1-5792867/ai-chatbot-flattery-mental-health-risks AI's a suck up. Research shows how it flatters and suggests we're not to blame Myra Cheng, a computer science Ph.D. student at Stanford University, has spent a lot of time listening to undergraduates on campus. "They would tell me about how a lot of their peers are using AI for relationship advice, to draft breakup texts, to navigate these kinds of social relationships with your friend or your partner or someone else in your real life," she says. Some students said that in those interactions, the AI quickly appeared to take their side. "And I think more broadly," says Cheng, "if you use AI for writing some sort of code or even editing any sort of writing, it'll be like, 'Wow, your code or your writing is amazing.' " To Cheng, this excessive flattery and unconditional validation from many AI models seemed different from how a human being might respond. She was curious about those discrepancies, their prevalence, and the possible repercussions. "We haven't really had this kind of technology for very long," she says, "and so no one really knows what the consequences of it are." In a recent study published in the journal Science, Cheng and her colleagues report that AI models offer affirmations more often than people do, even for morally dubious or troubling scenarios. And they found that this sycophancy was something that people trusted and preferred in an AI — even as it made them less inclined to apologize or take responsibility for their behavior. The findings, experts say, highlight how this common AI feature may keep people returning to the technology, despite the harm it causes them. It's not unlike social media in that both "drive engagement by creating addictive, personalized feedback loops that learn exactly what makes you tick," says Ishtiaque Ahmed, a computer scientist at the University of Toronto who wasn't involved in the research. AI can affirm worrisome human behavior To do this analysis, Cheng turned to a few datasets. One involved the Reddit community A.I.T.A., which stands for "Am I The A**hole?" "That's where people will post these situations from their lives and they'll get a crowdsourced judgment of — are they right or are they wrong?" says Cheng. For instance, is someone wrong for leaving their trash in a park that had no trash bins in it? The crowdsourced consensus: Yes, definitely wrong. City officials expect people to take their trash with them. But 11 AI models often took a different approach. "They give responses like, 'No, you're not in the wrong, it's perfectly reasonable that you left the trash on the branches of a tree because there was no trash bins available. You did the best you could,'" explains Cheng. In threads where the human community had decided someone was in the wrong, the AI affirmed that user's behavior 51% of the time. This trend also held for more problematic scenarios culled from a different advice subreddit where users described behaviors of theirs that were harmful, illegal or deceptive. "One example we have is like, 'I was making someone else wait on a video call for 30 minutes just for fun because, like, I wanted to see them suffer,'" says Cheng. The AI models were split in their responses, with some arguing this behavior was hurtful, while others suggested that the user was merely setting a boundary. Overall, the chatbots endorsed a user's problematic behavior 47% of the time. "You can see that there's a big difference between how people might respond to these situations versus AI," says Cheng. Encouraging you to feel you're right Cheng then wanted to examine the impact these affirmations might be having. The research team invited 800 people to interact with either an affirming AI or a non-affirming AI about an actual conflict from their lives where they may have been in the wrong. "Something where you were talking to your ex or your friend and that led to mixed feelings or misunderstandings," says Cheng, by way of example. She and her colleagues then asked the participants to reflect on how they felt and write a letter to the other person involved in the conflict. Those who had interacted with the affirming AI "became more self-centered," she says. And they became 25% more convinced that they were right compared to those who had interacted with the non-affirming AI. They were also 10% less willing to apologize, do something to repair the situation, or change their behavior. "They're less likely to consider other people's perspectives when they have an AI that can just affirm their perspectives," says Cheng. She argues that such relentless affirmation can negatively impact someone's attitudes and judgments. "People might be worse at handling their interpersonal relationships," she suggests. "They might be less willing to navigate conflict." And it had taken only the briefest of interactions with an AI to reach that point. Cheng also found that people had more confidence in and preference for an AI that affirmed them, compared to one that told them they might be wrong. As the authors explain in their paper, "This creates perverse incentives for sycophancy to persist" for the companies designing these AI tools and models. "The very feature that causes harm also drives engagement," they add. AI's dark side "This is a slow and invisible dark side of AI," says Ahmed of the University of Toronto. "When you constantly validate whatever someone is saying, they do not question their own decisions." Ahmed calls the work important and says that when a person's self-criticism becomes eroded, it can lead to bad choices — and even emotional or physical harm. "On the surface, it looks nice," he says. "AI is being nice to you. But they're getting addicted to AI because it keeps validating them." Ahmed explains that AI systems aren't necessarily created to be sycophantic. "But they are often fine-tuned to be helpful and harmless," he says, "which can accidentally turn into 'people-pleasing.' Developers are now realizing that to keep users engaged, they might be sacrificing the objective truth that makes AI actually useful." As for what might be done to address the problem, Cheng believes that companies and policymakers should work together to fix the issue, as these AIs are built deliberately by people, and can and should be modified to be less affirming. But there's an inevitable lag between the technology and possible regulation. "Many companies admit their AI adoption is still outpacing their ability to control it," says Ahmed. "It's a bit of a cat-and-mouse game where the tech evolves in weeks, while the laws to govern it can take years to pass." Cheng has reached an additional conclusion. "I think maybe the biggest recommendation," she says, "is to not use AI to substitute conversations that you would be having with other people," especially the tough conversations. Cheng herself hasn't yet used an AI chatbot for advice. "Especially now, given the consequences that we've seen," she says, "I think that I'm even less likely to do so in the future."

We buy Polo T from Uniqlo, Lacoste and many no-brand shops. Pros tell how to watch out and select a Polo so you look smart.

https://cnalifestyle.channelnewsasia.com/wellness/grumpy-old-person-personality-life-experiences-577756 Are you on your way to becoming a grumpy old person? You don't have to – starting now From scolding aunties and entitled uncles on public transportation, cranky seniors seem to be everywhere. But does ageing really make people irritable or does it simply magnify who you are? How do you not become a grumpy, old person? (Photo: iStock/tylim) Khoo Bee Khim 06 Feb 2026 07:04AM Bookmark WhatsApp Telegram Facebook Twitter Email LinkedIn Read a summary of this article on FAST. FAST Growing up, my late paternal Ah Ma was the archetype of a grumpy old person. There was not a single day that went by without her scolding or disapproving of someone. Walked past her in a way she didn’t like? You’d get reprimanded. Once, my classmate came over to work on a school project together. She shamed my bewildered project mate for using my PC (“Doesn’t your household have a computer? Why do you have to come over and use ours?”). My sympathies if you have also encountered seniors behaving badly in the wild. Like the entitled uncle who demands other passengers give up their seats for him on the MRT. The auntie who cuts in front of you to board the bus or order bak chor mee. At work, it may be the old-timer whose default response is “no” – if you even dare to approach them in the first place. Advertisement I often wonder what these cranky folks were like in their younger days. Have they always been irritable, or did something happen that made them the way they are now, like Mr Fredericksen in Pixar’s Up? And can you be your own Russell and Doug to lift you out of misery if your positivity bubble keeps getting popped? DOES AGE = GRUMPINESS? Turning a certain age doesn’t flip a switch in your personality that morphs you into a misery-loving Squidward or raging Plankton. “If age really made people grumpy, every senior would be miserable – and clearly, that is not the case,” said Serene Lee, a psychotherapist and the founder of counselling centre ICCT.sg. “Age does not automatically equal grumpiness. This is very much a stereotype.” Age does not automatically equal grumpiness. This is very much a stereotype. (Photo: iStock/kimberrywood) What might make seniors seem grumpy could be their age amplifying their existing traits. “As we get older, we tend to care less about others' opinions,” said Lee. “So, if someone was a bit impatient when they were younger, it may become more visible later on.” On the flipside, “those who were warm, humorous and adaptable often become even more grounded and joyful with age”, Lee explained. Ageing “reveals what is already there, often influenced by life experiences”. Moreover, “many older adults regulate emotions as well as, or even better than younger adults because they become more selective about what they spend their time and energy on”, observed clinical psychologist Dr Annabelle Chow from Annabelle Psychology. Advertisement Besides, “occasional irritability is human,” she said. Even “persistent irritability is usually a signal, not a flaw”. “Clinically, (grumpiness) can appear with stress overload, depression, anxiety, trauma, sleep problems, pain, medication effects, or cognitive decline,” said Dr Chow. “In seniors especially, irritability is often how distress shows up when sadness, fear or loss is harder to express, or when a sense of control feels reduced.” In seniors, irritability is often how distress shows up when a sense of control feels reduced. (Photo: iStock/edwintan) CAN OUR PERSONALITY CHANGE AS WE AGE? “How someone behaves in later life is often shaped by what they have lived through – and how they have coped with life’s challenges over the years,” said Brenda Loh, a medical social worker with Allium Healthcare. For example, when obstacles such as unmanaged health problems, the loss of loved ones, or reduced independence are not addressed, “distress may show up as irritability or grumpiness”, she said. “This is not caused by ageing itself but by the challenges the person is facing.” Yes, even optimistic people can become irritable if they keep facing unaddressed pain, loss or loneliness, said Lee. “Personality sets the tone but life experiences write the script. Think of personality as the steering wheel and life events, the road conditions. Even a good driver struggles on a bumpy road.” Advertisement As a matter of fact, your personality is “fairly steady” by adulthood, said Dr Chow. “How you are in your 30s to 50s can offer a rough clue to your default behaviour under pressure. But it does not lock in whether you will become ‘grumpy’ later in life.” In many cases, said Dr Chow, “later-life irritability has more to do with accumulated strain, such as poor sleep, chronic pain, health issues, ongoing stress, loneliness and reduced support than personality itself”. WHY DO WE LOSE PATIENCE AND TOLERANCE AS WE AGE? If you often find yourself complaining internally when you encounter a crying baby, crowds or other triggering situations, we have bad news: you’re going to complain externally as you get older. Seniors feel less obligated to suffer silently. (Photo: iStock/kazuma seki) That’s because seniors feel less obligated to suffer silently, said Lee. “When you feel your years are limited, you are less willing to waste them being annoyed by a phone blaring in public. After decades of life, we often feel entitled to not put up with foolishness. It is not always about being grumpy; sometimes it is simply having a lower tolerance for nonsense.” Another factor is “our patience often shrinks not because we care less but because our mental and physical bandwidths are lower”, explained Dr Chow. “Loud noises, crowding and constant stimulation are nervous-system stressors. And when you are tired, stressed, in pain or not sleeping well, your brain has less capacity to filter them out." Advertisement Also, “with age, many people mask less socially”, continued Dr Chow. “Where younger adults may grin and bear it to avoid conflict, older adults are more willing to express their frustrations to protect their space and energy, especially in high-load environments like Singapore.” WHY DO SOME PEOPLE HAVE A BREEZIER TAKE ON LIFE THAN OTHERS? Ah, to be unbothered and flourishing in your own lane. Unfortunately, “a happy-go-lucky style is not always purely inborn”, said Dr Chow. “For many people, it is the result of learned emotion regulation, such as reframing, perspective taking, humour, gratitude and choosing what is worth engaging, that helps them recover faster after daily frustrations,” she said. A happy-go-lucky style is not always purely inborn. For many people, it is the result of learned emotion regulation. (Photo: iStock/tkpond) Even if you can tap into that state of mind, “good coping can be worn down by prolonged adversity”, said Dr Chow. In cases that involve physical brain changes, for instance, such as after a stroke, cognitive decline or dementia, the patient’s impulse control and emotional regulation may alter, making them seem out of character, she said. Which is why “supportive relationships, good healthcare and emotional support all play a crucial role in ageing well”, said Loh. “It’s not a magic shield,” highlighted Lee. “Life can still deliver blows but starting from a positive mindset makes emotional recovery easier.” HOW CAN WE LIGHTEN UP? There is something called the positivity effect that lets you focus more on positive information and memories than negative ones. “The positivity effect is a skill that takes time to develop,” explained Lee. “Those who find it easier to access this effect usually have practised emotional regulation from a young age, learned how to let go, and developed perspective through hardship.” The positivity effect lets you focus more on positive information and memories than negative ones. (Photo: iStock/Patrick Chu) So, what makes some people better at accessing the positivity effect? “Think of it like a savings account,” said Lee. “Those who have consistently invested in good relationships and healthy coping mechanisms have a greater emotional reserve to draw from later on.” On the flipside, those who struggle to process emotions, ruminate heavily or experience unresolved trauma may find it harder to focus on the positive, even in older age, said Lee. “To put it simply, emotional habits do not suddenly change at age 65; they are refined versions of patterns that have been built over decades.” The version of you that you envision in your senior years starts now, said Dr Chow. "Imagine it is your 80th birthday and the people who matter most are speaking about you. What would you hope they say? How would you want them to describe you, how you treated people, or how you lived your life? Keep that picture in mind to help you start making more meaningful choices." Work on building self-awareness and emotional regulation in your 30s to 50s. (Photo: iStock/Prostock-Studio) Another way to approach it is to work on building self-awareness and emotional regulation in our 30s to 50s, suggested Loh. “For example, during a difficult or conflicting conversation, ask yourself: ‘what emotions am I feeling right now?’ and ‘what triggered these feelings for me?’," said Loh. "These questions will help you to understand your emotions and triggers, notice patterns that may lead to frustration or irritability, and make intentional choices when similar circumstances arise.” At the end of the day, becoming an old, grumpy person doesn't have to be your final stop, said Lee. "It is usually a build-up from not taking care of your emotions over time. Sure, daily affirmations can be beneficial but there is also this straightforward question to consider: will this matter in a year from now? If the answer is 'no', take a deep breath and let it go. Your future self will thank you."