datawithaplot.org · a study in operationalization
Four questions. For each one, drag the line to the age where it starts. There are no wrong answers, but you do have to commit to a number.
Takes about a minute. Nothing you enter leaves your browser.
Each question swapped in a different old. A senior is a category. Too old to drive is a body. Too old to start over is a future. When the meaning changed, your number moved with it.
That move is the whole trick of measurement. A fuzzy idea cannot be counted until someone picks one exact, countable version of it. The picking has a name: operationalization. And the number you get depends on the version you pick.
When a law needs old, someone picks a number and writes it down. Here are your lines next to the ones on the books.
Tap a purple dot above, or browse the list. Each number was drawn for a different purpose. None of them agree.
None of these numbers is the true old, yours included. Each one is a definition built for a purpose: pouring drinks, protecting workers, funding meals, releasing prisoners. So when a claim begins with "older adults," ask the operationalization question: which line, drawn for what job? Clarity is kindness: say which old you mean.
At the other end of the lifespan, one line does far more work than any of these: 18. Counted Wrong, a companion project coming to this site, takes up that story.