The claim that people over 70 who love solitude are among the happiest in society is half right: the research shows later life often brings more contentment, but everything turns on whether the solitude is chosen or is loneliness in disguise

The safe way to read the claim is this: later life often does bring more emotional steadiness, and solitude chosen freely can be part of a contented old age. Older adults, on average, report better control of their emotions and fewer negative feelings than younger adults. One consequence is that older adults tend to prune their social worlds deliberately, keeping the relationships that matter and shedding the ones that drain. It is correlational, drawn from a single country and a self-selected group of community-dwelling elders, and it cannot show that positive solitude causes the protection. The finding is a reason to take positive solitude seriously as a concept, not proof that it is a treatment for anything.