“Learning becomes increasingly difficult with age” – myth or truth? We answer this question in this article and show you the tricks that make learning in a working context even easier at any age.
Whether at work or in everyday life: older people repeatedly encounter the prejudice that they can no longer learn new things as quickly. If an older employee makes a mistake, it is often blamed on age. In this article, we will discuss why this is not true.
Learning is always possible
Learning researcher Christian Stamov Roßnagel from the University of Bremen explains what it really looks like in an interview with Zeit:
"Often, older people even outperform younger ones because they can more easily integrate new information into their larger pool of prior knowledge."
Stamov Roßnagel also has an explanation for the myth: many older people signal on their own that learning is impossible at their age and repeatedly find excuses for why they cannot learn anything new. Consequently, it is not a matter of ability, but of motivation!
This illustrates that the assumption “older people are worse at learning” is a misunderstanding – unfortunately, this repeatedly leads to discrimination against older employees in many workplaces:
"The ability to learn itself does not decrease at all, at most the speed of learning slows down slightly. But even among 70-year-olds, the differences compared to younger people are often so minor that there is no reason to assign other, rather insignificant tasks to older employees, for example."
Nevertheless, there are a few tricks on how learning at an older age can be made easier and faster again. With enough time, older people can quickly overtake younger ones – because they have a decisive advantage: experience.
"The broader, more comprehensive, and more complicated the challenges are, the smaller the differences between older and younger people become."
How learning works for older employees
Now we come to the tips for easy learning at an older age! Of course, these tricks also help young learners, but they are particularly important for older employees:
5 tips that facilitate the learning process for BOTH young and old:
Learning must happen regularly and should ideally be firmly scheduled into daily life or the working routine.
Learning motivation is often not as high in older employees as it is in younger ones: set sub-goals or milestones to maintain learning motivation over the long term.
Draw on existing knowledge and experience and link new learning content with already existing topics.
Back in school, they always said: “Write it down, you'll remember it better” – in this sense: let your employees take notes.
Repetitions and variety in the learning routine help with particularly complex content.
Particularly in mixed teams, it is worthwhile to establish cross-generational learning formats. When experienced employees contribute their practical knowledge and simultaneously learn new digital methods, both sides benefit from each other, and knowledge transfer is sustainably strengthened.
Flashcards as support – this works digitally, too
Flashcards remain a popular tool to assist oneself in learning – this also works very well at an older age. However, they do not always have to be in paper form; nowadays, they can also be wonderfully created digitally.
Many companies, academies, and trainers use digital learning platforms or learning management systems (LMS) such as blink.it. In such systems, you can create small learning units in the style of flashcards. The illustration above shows you what this looks like, for example, in the blink.it learning platform. The advantage: your employees are not dependent on paper cards but can access the learning content online anytime and anywhere.
Such small learning units in microlearning style can additionally support learning at an older age. By relying on different forms of media and repeating content multiple times, you can significantly support the learning process for older employees as well.
Conclusion
Learning in old age is not a myth, but a question of motivation, structure, and a suitable learning environment.
The ability to learn itself is preserved – what matters is how further education is designed. Clear goals, regular learning impulses, and linking with existing experiential knowledge support older employees in reliably processing new content.
When digital learning formats are designed to be flexible, practical, and repeatable, employees of all ages benefit – and companies strengthen their competence base in the long term.
We hope this article has provided you with useful information and wish you great success with your online courses for all age groups!
Frequently Asked Questions and Answers
Do older people really learn slower than younger ones?
The ability to learn is fundamentally preserved. Although the speed of learning may decrease slightly with age, older people benefit from their larger pool of experiential knowledge and can often better categorize new content.
Why does motivation play such a major role in learning at an older age?
Many older employees doubt their own ability to learn or have had negative learning experiences. Clear goals, small milestone steps, and practical content help to maintain motivation in the long term.
How do digital learning formats support older employees in learning?
Digital learning formats enable flexible learning at one's own pace and offer content that is available at any time. Particularly small, repeatable learning units in microlearning style make it easier to process new information.
Why are age-mixed learning formats useful in companies?
In age-mixed teams, younger and older employees benefit from one another. Experiential knowledge meets new methods and digital skills, which sustainably strengthens knowledge transfer within the company.
