Anyone with a mobile phone knows how prevalent scams have become. Whether perpetrated by text, email, social media, or phone calls, fraudulent schemes abound. The elderly are particularly at risk for being scammed, as their thought processes might not be quite as sharp, loneliness may make them more prone to engaging with a scammer, and with more time on their hands, they may give more scammers the benefit of the doubt rather than just deleting the email or hanging up the phone in a rush.
A recent study published in the Journals of Gerontology suggests that there can be a ray of hope. Researchers at the University of Florida, led by Natalie Ebner, Ph.D., have discovered that among older adults, higher levels of bodily awareness were correlated with a higher ability to detect phishing schemes and lying.
The study played out like this: more than 100 American adults were recruited, and divided categorically by age. In one group were college-aged people in their early 20s, and in the other were older adults ranging in age from 43 to 82, with a mean age of........