Disengagement Theory

As we grow old, we have to adjust to new things. For example, things like new technology or new houses are just a few of the many things we will find easier to adjust to. The harder adjustments as we age would be new social roles in society. Changes are in every aspect of life when people age, and we have to try and fit to what roles that have been pushed upon us by society. The chapter overview lecture the professor gives provides a brief introduction about what is talked about in the chapter. The chapter spoke on different social roles and identities people take on as they age. It spoke about different theories that arose to explain these changes and how not one theory has been appointed as the concrete idea about what happens in social roles as we age. The professor talks about the disengagement theory and what it entails. It is one of the more mentioned theories in the chapter. It explains the occurrence of when a person grows older, they withdraw from everything. They fall back and do not engage with people or activities like they used to.

He explains that the life perspective is shaped by your experiences in accordance to your birth and what year, decade, or century you happened to be born in. For instance, older people have experienced a different upbringing than the youth of today. Even so much as 50 years ago, segregation was the norm in the south. With the presence of technology, many youth of today do not experience outward segregation in society today that those did 50 years ago. Even the difference of someone growing up in the 90s and the early 2000s shapes their life experience. A lot of difference can happen over the years. While no two people have the same life experience, the generation born at the same time can still share of lot of characteristics if they were exposed to a lot around the same things at the same