Courtney Pochin
Published November 26, 2025 2:20pm
Updated November 26, 2025 2:21pm
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Are you officially an adult? (Picture: Getty/Metro)
At 31, there are moments in life that make me feel like I’ve got my s**t together and others that leave me screaming, crying and proclaiming, ‘I’m just a baby’.
According to a new study, the latter might actually be true, as the official age at which you ‘become an adult’ has been revealed – and it seems I’m not quite there yet.
Neuroscientists at the University of Cambridge have claimed that on average, adolescence (the period during which you develop from a child into an adult) actually lasts until the age of 32.
So if you’re approaching the big 3-0 and still don’t feel like a fully-fledged adult, you might want to cut yourself some slack.
We’re all just big kids at heart and in our brains too, apparently… (Picture: Getty Images/iStockphoto)
What happens to our brain in our 30s?
Cambridge’s MRC Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit compared the brains of 3,802 people between zero and 90-years-old using MRI diffusion scans. From here they identified four pivotal ‘turning points’ between birth and death, when our brains ‘reconfigure’.
The first turning point comes at the age of nine, when our childhood brain transitions into adolescence. This period ends at 32, when the brain’s neural wiring shifts into ‘adult mode’.
Dr Alexa Mousley, a Gates Cambridge Scholar who led the research, explains: ‘Around the age of 32, we see the most directional changes in wiring and the largest overall shift in trajectory, compared to all the other turning points.
The team compared brain scans of 3,802 people aged between 0 and 90 (Picture: Getty Images)
‘While puberty offers a clear start, the end of adolescence is much harder to pin down scientifically. Based purely on neural architecture, we found that adolescent-like changes in brain structure end around the early thirties.’
Throughout your 30s and beyond, brain architecture ‘stabilises’ compared to previous phases with no major turning points for three more decades. During this time, regions of the brain slowly become more compartmentalised and there’s also a ‘plateau in intelligence and personality’, which has been seen in other studies.
The study claimed 32 was the age you enter adulthood (Picture: Getty Images)
The next turning point takes place at 66, which marks the start of ‘early ageing’ and then ‘late ageing’ begins at around 83-years-old.
The (unofficial) signs you’ve officially become an adult
Whether you’re 32 or not, you’ve probably had a moment at one point or another that made you feel well and truly like an adult.
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Perhaps it was when you switched banks to get a free Apple Watch, or the first time you had to call your GP to book your own doctors appointment.
I asked my colleagues to share the moment they knew they had reached adulthood and the responses were interesting…
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Here are Metro’s signs that you’re an adult now, regardless of your age…
- When you become excited to purchase a new vacuum cleaner, fridgeor any kind of kitchen equipment. You’ll probably have 129232 photos of the same toaster pinned on Pinterest.
- Getting into gardening as a hobby and not just because you have to do it (special mention goes to avid watchers of Gardeners World).
- Going to a nightclub and discovering that you are now those ‘weird older people’ you’d always see on a night out when you were 18.
- Walking around with your hands behind your back, not to take the p*ss out of your dad, but because it’s actually quite a comfortable way to walk.
- Realising that getting pants and socks for Christmas isn’t lame, it’s GREAT.
Is getting excited about buying a vacuum a sign of adulthood? (Picture: Getty Images)
- You can no longer wake up without something inexplicably aching and you start making noises when getting up from the sofa.
- Listening to BBC Radio 4 and actually enjoying it.
- Noticing that yes, you are starting to get wrinkles and religiously applying SPF everyday.
- Suddenly finding yourself really into olive oil, and committing to spending £20 on a fancy brand.
When did you start feeling like an adult?
- Late teensCheck
- In your 20sCheck
- When you turned 30Check
- 30+Check
- Or do you still not feel like an adult...Check
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