Abstract
OBJECTIVES: To investigate an access point during youth with the potential to have a positive impact on social engagement in later-life. Our social selves begin long before older adulthood, a life-stage during which people face extensive changes to their social milieu. Adolescence is a sensitive period for sociocultural processing and adolescent activities have the potential to impact social engagement in older adulthood. We examine reading since, in adolescence, it promotes social-cognitive skills which facilitate social engagement. METHODS: Our main goal was to study the relationship between adolescent reading and older adult social engagement. We used longitudinal cohort data from Project Talent and ordered logistic regression as well as two-wave, cross-lagged panel model to analyze this relationship. Ancillary analyses examined recognized relationships between reading and social-cognition and between social-cognition and social engagement in both adolescence and older adulthood. RESULTS: Adolescent reading was related to more frequent older adult social engagement with both family and friends. This relationship was independent of reading during older adulthood, social engagement during adolescence, and social-cognition at both life-stages. Adolescent social engagement was not associated with older adult reading in the two-wave, cross-lagged model. Reading was positively related to social-cognition in adolescence, but was insignificant in older adulthood. And, social-cognition was positively related to social engagement in both adolescence and older adulthood. DISCUSSION: Reading is declining for both young and older Americans. Young Americans are also socializing less than in previous decades. These trends could have a detrimental influence on social engagement and social isolation in future cohorts of older adults. We recommend continuing to look for activities and experiences during youth, especially the sensitive period of adolescence, that could stimulate social engagement over the life-course and into older adulthood.