How Long is Too Long? Study Reveals Most Want a Lifespan of 90 Years

Credit: The Wall Street Journal

Every year, we can count on a new study to reveal “the increase of our lifespan!” thanks to innovations in science and health technologies. In 2005, the average life expectancy of a person living in the U.S was about 77 years (according to the NVSS). By 2009, National Geographic stated that men and women in the U.S could expect to live an average of 79 years. Today, the number hasn’t necessarily skyrocketed, remaining at an average of about 81 years – but it hasn’t fallen flat, either.

Credit: The Wall Street Journal

A 2013 study by the Pew Research Center has just published its findings on the public’s reaction towards our ever-increasing lifespan. It is, after all, a percentage that increases at the mercy of our country’s own financial efforts – a reality that makes the average Joe’s response all the more interesting. And crucial.

How long would it take, at this rate, to live to 120? And more importantly: do we even want to start measuring our life in demi-centuries?”

The remarks made by Pew survey responders are a welcome surprise. Overall, they can help us imagine a population that isn’t fixated on a pill-and-procedure warpath for increasing their lifespan. Rather, the study found that “attitudes about aging, medical advances and “radical life extension”—the possibility that science might slow (or stop) the aging process” was refreshingly pragmatic, rooted in concerns for the economy and our planet’s resources. 56 percent of the interviewees said they would opt out of “medical treatments that would enable them to live 12 decades,” saying that their “median ideal lifespan was 90.”

Credit: The Wall Street Journal

“How long would it take to live to 120? Do we even want to start measuring our life in demi-centuries?”

Two-thirds of US citizens agreed that that striving towards a “longer life expectanc[y] would strain the country’s natural resources,” with six out of 10 people admitting that at the end of the day, such treatment would be “fundamentally unnatural.””

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