What’s the smartest age? - Shannon Odell

At what age are you smartest? Dig into how your brain development affects your skills at different stages of your life.

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Tomorrow is the annual Brain Clash — a decathlon of mental challenges, trivia competitions, and puzzles. Amir needs a smart and capable teammate and must choose between three people; all of different ages and talents. So, who should Amir choose for the contest? Shannon Odell breaks down the idea of “smart” and explores how our brain development impacts our skills at various stages of our lives.

Lesson by Shannon Odell, directed by Biljana Labović.

This video made possible in collaboration with Bezos Family Foundation

A special thanks to Ali Cohen who provided information and insights for the development of this video.

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[erinharrington]

i feel like no matter what age i am i’m dumber than i’ve ever been

[hehebwoy]

Age and experience complement each other. It helps with learning and improving from mistakes.

[liamriddy]

In my experience, 4-year old's have life all figured out. No school, all meals cooked for you, plenty of sleep etc etc...

[gelbug]

Not gonna lie... I felt the smartest in my teens. That passion for learning had me reading lots of books, doing activities, and having time to explore. I felt my vocab was at its peak and recall was fast.

[crispin]

I genuinely believe ages 16-45 are the smartest in terms of developing beneficial practices and ideas. Experience plays a huge role in life, but it can also skew a positive trajectory by “sticking to what you know.” In my career field, medicine, older providers are commonly on a downward trend due to them refusing to “update” their knowledge. If your experiences hinder you from adapting and growing, you are not the peak of intelligence.

[okenwaayomikun]

The smartest age is 8, 16, 25, 65 and everything in between.
People over 65: ...and I took that personally.

[pranatirajput]

Title: What’s the smartest age?
The video: *proceeds to confuse you*

[FedJimSmith]

I'm well advanced to my 30s, and I feel smarter every passing year. I hope this keeps going forever and ever

[ScienceVashu]

I appreciate the animators, they never run out of new techniques of animation

[lukegbn]

In my limited experience, I definitely felt more intelligence about 4 years ago. I’m 20 now

[yeet]

In my opinion, I think the peak intelligence for most people is the teenage years. It’s the transition between childhood and adulthood, it’s the time where kids are growing and learning to explore themselves and the world, the time where they form hobbies and be more responsible. It’s also the time where one realizes how vast the world actually is and how there is so much to learn and know. I’m not saying humans are the smartest when they are teens (def not), what I mean is that it’s the time where we actually learn new things and start exploring.

[coolman]

this actually reminds of a study where kids, teens, and adults did a test from nasa themselves.

Most adults failed, half of the teens failed, and most kids passed.

The conclusion they came with is that kids have no consequences for making mistakes and don't fear them at all while teens have fear as they're more or less seen as adults while having creativity similar to a child.

And adults get the short end of the stick as consequences for them messing up can be life changing.

I'd recommend check out the home movies review from emp lemon as he goes into more detail about the Nasa experiment himself.

[KnightsofGaming]

"There is no age at which we stop learning"
- Barrin, Tolarian Archmage

[eyesyt]

I'm 17 years old, and looking back I don't think I've changed at all over the years. I can remember when I was three, and besides being more optimistic perhaps, I had the same thought process. I'm how I've always been. Perhaps, less happens in my mind than when I was younger, but that is the only change.

[Stanger_]

The way they are presenting information and animating it has just elevated to a whole new level. Like pick any other video from 2-3 years ago and compare it with the recent ones! Like I'm not saying that the ones done before are bad. But just wanted to highlight the improvement that they have introduced in the quality of their videos.

[nocturno]

I feel the smartest right now, currently 28, the overall experience and knowledge just surpasses all me
I could learn the quickest in my teen age years, particularly 15-16, I noticed I picked up skills very fast and mastered them in no time

[joey]

If I look back at my 29years of life, I would always pick the 29year old me.
I think my ability to learn and concentrate only improves over time. Also the experience and amount of information I hold only increases. But I am only 29. I don't know if this is continuous.

I do agree that at certain ages I had a better understanding of certain subjects. Languages and mathematics I never use degrade over time. But relearning those old skills is as easy as reading it once.

It's the same as movies. There are movies I haven't seen since I was a child. But just watching the first 5min of that movie brings back the entire movie and information I processed.

If aging continues like this, I think I will become a better version of myself. But the catch in this all is that I need a healthy brain and keep practicing my knowledge. My work is solving problems and I think this also has an influence on my brain.

[rd]

I love you TED-Ed ❤, thank you very much for everything you guys have done for us

[zoowon]

This video is telling us no matter how old we are. Aging concerns many people. people become easily disappointed by the fact of they get old. But I would like to suggest them changing the view of them. What you can obtain at 70 years old is what you can't at 20 years old. Valuable is every age.

[WorldITAcademy]

Let's all appreciate the animators for such a good animation.