The question is, is it worth it getting into chess as an adult? What is the appeal? And what additional value does it bring compared to other "productive"/mentally stimulating hobbies?
From another angle, there is a huge amount of research on chess as a model of cognition. Because chess rating is quite objective, you can measure things like speed of learning, increase in skill with age, followed by decline of skill with age, the effects of alcohol and other drugs, diet, sleep. And, of course, it is a completely classic and ongoing topic of ai research and decision theory. If you are interested in those topics, having some insight into the game is also useful.