In middle age, the prefrontal cortex degrades in effectiveness, and this has several implications. The first is that rapid analysis and creative innovation will suffer—just what we would expect when looking at the evidence on decline. The second is that some specific, once-easy skills become devilishly hard, like multi-tasking. Older people are much more easily distracted than younger people. If you have—or had—teenage kids, you might have found yourself telling them they can't study effectively while listening to music and texting their friends. Actually, it is you who can't do that. If fact, older adults can enhance their cognitive effectiveness precisely by taking their own advice: turn off the phone and music and go someplace completely quiet to think and work.
-Arthur C. Brooks, From Strength to Strength
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