Putting an age on the body and mind

Is Richard Fitzpatrick having an early midlife crisis? He can’t resist trying out the internet tools that put an age on different parts of your body and mind

Up until the Enlightenment era, the average punter’s abiding question was: “How can I be saved?” Then someone came along – propelled by a desire to venerate the self over God – and changed it to: “How can I be happy?” Now somebody has gone and switched the query again to: “How can I look younger?”

There’s no escaping it – we live in an age that glorifies eternal youth. If you scratch the surface of the internet, you’ll get bombarded with online tests that prey on this neurosis. Microsoft has come up with a website that invites users to answer the question “How old do I look?” You upload a photo of yourself and a piece of face-prediction software guesses your age (and gender).