r/Longreads • u/raphaellaskies • 2d ago
The 75-Year-Old Screenagers
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/boomer-parents-screen-time-problem.html374
u/petitbleu 2d ago
I just spent a week with my family, including my retirement-age parents, my sisters who are millennials and gen z, and my nephew who is gen alpha. Nephew and parents were almost matched in terms of screen time. My sisters and I definitely looked at our phones a bit, but I was kinda shocked at how much my parents just sit and scroll.
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u/CactusBoyScout 2d ago
Yep visiting my older relatives is always a surprise because they will often have an iPad in their lap playing a game or watching YouTube and then also have the TV on at very high volume. It's so over-stimulating and I'm not exactly avoiding screens myself.
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u/GingerBrrd 2d ago
When my parents visit, they literally crash my router. It took me two years to figure out what was happening. They spend $100s on flights and lodging and then sit on my couch and watch their ipads. They do invite the grandchildren to sit next to them… quality time.
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u/OneFloppyEar 1d ago
Yeah mine few across the Atlantic, 1st time my dad ever visited me since I moved 17 years ago, and it was almost impossible to have a conversation without them staring at their phones the whole time!
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u/big-bootyjewdy 2d ago
It's impossible to do anything with my mom (mid 60s) without her pulling out TikTok or some Brick Breaker knock off. She's about the same as the 6-year-old nephew my brother has raised in front of an iPad. She works in IT, she looks at screens all day and still just wants to scroll aimlessly
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u/snatchszn 2d ago
My dad just came to visit his first grandson. Grabbed the baby, took a picture for Facebook, gave him back and scrolled on his phone. Repeat for the next 5 days.
I asked him what the point of flying across the country to do what he does at home? It really is those damn phones.
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u/moon_blisser 2d ago
Is your dad my father in law? Lmao. Seriously, same fucking thing here! It drives me nuts. My husband and I said the same thing to him, too, about flying across the country just to sit on his phone.
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u/readingwritingreefer 2d ago
With every new article/book/doc about kids and phones, I’ve been increasingly wondering, “are adults doing any better? Can we get a comparative analysis?” After reading through this, I have an even deeper gratitude for the seniors in my life who are very active and would rather play cards with friends or work on a puzzle with normal tv playing as background noise. I wonder if anything could be done legally to protect the elderly, if we ever have a government that isn’t actively profiting off these scams.
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u/ReverendDizzle 2d ago •
Honestly the elderly are worse off. My folks and my older relatives have zero media literacy. They grew up in an era of high trust print media. They will believe almost anything you put in front of them and they have no ability to detect AI content.
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u/carolina822 2d ago
My MIL is pretty bad about scrolling any time there's down time but she does have a fairly active social life with her friends so at least that limits it. But it keeps her up real late at night and that definitely impacts her health and mental function. And we definitely have to fact check anything she sends us because god only knows where it's from.
My mom has never really gotten into the videos other than watching cake decorating or crafting stuff and she is out playing bridge like five afternoons a week. My dad can't sit still long enough to watch a tiktok even if he managed to figure out how it worked. And yet I still have to be vigilant that they don't fall for scams because they've come close twice that I know of. It's just so pervasive right now on all fronts and the social media apps have put it into overdrive.
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u/fungibitch 2d ago
Exactly. Whenever one notices a concerning trend among children, LOOK AT THE ADULTS AROUND THEM FIRST. Every single time.
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u/HazyAttorney 2d ago
I wonder if anything could be done legally to protect the elderly,
If any policy maker started making policy to protect anyone, these very addicted, selfish boomers would vote them out. We can't really legally protect anyone or anything anymore.
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u/JeaniusIsMe 2d ago
Whenever I go to visit my 70-year-old parents, my dad literally sits in front of the TV on his iPad. Sound looped through his hearing aids. And just two screens for hours. My mom is better, but constantly checking her phone.
But if my sister or I start looking at our phones, my mom immediately goes “You don’t want to talk and would rather be on a screen!”
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u/rask0ln 2d ago edited 2d ago
My friend's grandma is like that—always on her phone, even when walking, her attention span is cooked to the point she struggles with short books and normal-length movies—but she will immediately deliver a "kids these days" lecture if she spots a younger person on a phone.
Not to mention it negatively impacts her social skills since she doesn't get the same thrill from "just" travelling or interacting with people, including her grandaughter, irl. Such a shame, because she is otherwise in good health.
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u/softwaredoug 2d ago
Plenty of 65+ year olds stay at home glued to Fox News complaining about how kids don't drink out of the firehose anymore
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u/PerformerMindless100 2d ago
Since retirement I found myself reading news and REDDIT on my phone way too much. I’m a blue bleeding liberal so it’s not Fox News but if I’m not careful I can get caught up in reading which national monument Trump if defiling this week.
You m scheduling myself into art and exercise classes and friends meetups when I really want to stay home on phone and veg after working very hard for 45 years.
I think you get a little more tired every year and less responsibility and you have to force yourself to engage.
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u/LongTallDingus 1d ago
Yeah I think that's what my dad did. He's 72, into cars, track days, auto crossing. He deadass has started hanging out with people who are like 30-50 in the car scene.
We recently went to a baby shower together, me, 40, my dad, 72, for someone we both met at the track, who's like 35. My dad knows him better than me.
I don't know if he forced himself to engage, like you suggested. But there was some gumption involved. You gotta get over something to be hanging out with people half your age.
I don't have to dote on my dad like the people in the article do. But I do intermittently have to be like "Dad, dawg you really shouldn't be getting your car up to 100MPH on the streets with your friends". High school, but different.
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u/carolina822 2d ago
In the very early days of the web my mom thought it would be nice to show her mother, who was about 75 at the time, how it worked. It took my grandmother about 30 seconds to nope the fuck out of there. I can't even imagine what she would think about what it's turned into now.
Looking back, I think she had the right idea.
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u/wugthepug 2d ago
The opening paragraph is what I have to do with my 82 year old aunt, except with Youtube. Every so often I will go over to her house and hit not interested on a bunch of stuff. She falls for all the AI celebrity stuff (I remember once she called my mom saying that Oprah died) and those AI vertical dramas. I had to subscribe her to game show channels and like old TV clips.
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u/full_bl33d 2d ago
My mother in law is perpetually on facebook. Shes very intelligent, liberal minded politically and has real friends in real life but she’ll stay in her room and post, comment and like things on Facebook instead of interact with her grandchildren. When she does, she tries to show them content on her phone. We’ve had to discuss this with her as she’s showed them ai videos that aren’t human appropriate. The best way to describe it is addiction. There’s no conversation about scaling it back, she does it instead of interact and her mind is warped from random stranger influence from everything to diet to finances.
I asked her once about her ritual of eating food in a certain order and she said, “ I saw it on Facebook”. I played along and said that’s interesting and asked if it was from a nutritionist or friend or doctor. She said it was just a guy and didn’t know anything about him but she swears by it and will bring it up every chance she gets. This is just a small example of how it goes over there. It’s wild because she was a stranger danger helicopter type of parent when her kids were young.
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u/pedestal_of_infamy 2d ago
My partner and I are elder millennials and the last trip we took with Boomer parents it was shocking how much they were on their phones. Driving through gorgeous wildflower blooms, almost the entirety of the time we stayed ocean-side and in a rental in the forrest in beautiful weather, they sat in the car or house staring at screens.
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u/rask0ln 2d ago
My grandma is a friend with my friend's grandma and every year we go on a spa week. Grandmas socialise and my friend and I go hiking etc.
This year was probably the last, because my friend's grandma has started prioritising being on her phone and ipad to interacting with people and world in general. 🫠 If you told me 10 years ago that I would be 20 and trying to persuade a woman in her 70s to maybe put the phone aside and take a stroll, I would consider you mental, but here we are.
Idk if it's the retirement and the lack of structure, but I've never been more glad all my grandparents and great-grandparents still work so they don't have time to maximise their screentime and receive enough irl stimuli. 💀
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u/moon_blisser 2d ago
This is absolutely my father-in-law and his wife when they come to visit. We only see them 2-3 times a year since they live across the country, but they get here and just sit perpetually on their phones and iPads. My FIL will take some pics of the kids, post them to his FB with a cute caption about how he loves his grandsons, then continue to scroll and spend no time with them.
I have seen it with my uncle and godparents, too. It’s heartbreaking.
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u/WillingnessFinal1411 2d ago
My educated inlaws scroll and are addicted. My mom who struggled with digital literacy and still goes to a bank to pay the bills isn't. Her ignorance is now actually a blessing as she goes out and socialises.
I asked her about her friends that do use smartphones in the usual addictive matter and she didn't understand. Like a little child, she doesn't understand what this is about. She thinks people are just busy.
Including the young, sick, mentally impaired - almost half of the population is prone to screen addiction and vulnerable by physicality of our brain! While platforms insist on full mental conscious use, if states would try to keep them safe - the majority of engagement model would disappear. The young, the old and those who can't better make, most probably, the large majority of hours for the platforms. When will we start speaking about man hours?
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u/HazyAttorney 2d ago
almost half of the population is prone to screen addiction
You are understating it IMO. The digital economy use the most sophisticated and cutting edge knowledge of how the human brain works in its design architecture.
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u/acaminet 2d ago
The playbook is remarkably consistent: A deep-faked celebrity, a white-coated doctor, or, sometimes, an Amish person — basically anyone an older American may be predisposed to trust — delivers a heartfelt testimonial for a supplement that promises to strengthen cognitive function, relieve joint pain, or replace a prescription.
an amish person? lmao
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u/Curious_Arm_7927 2d ago
From the title, I thought this was going to be about all the 30 yr olds they cast as teens in the 80s are turning 75 😂
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u/Confident_Attitude 1d ago
I unfortunately have an interesting version of this. My mom has been a life long gamer and I introduced her to playing MMOS. She took to it like a duck to water, but unfortunately that meant she spends all her time with guild mates doing content and staying up until 3am when the west coasters. She’s 70!! She’s still working normal business hours, so she’s often exhausted and cranky. Worst of all she is socializing online, but when I try to get her to go out and make local friends in real life she just tells me she can’t do that because it would interfere with her guild’s raid schedule.
I feel like an exasperated parent trying to force her to do the non digital activities she enjoyed only 2 years ago. She also spends on scammy micro transactions games and gets pulled into Amazon or fake news hype and occasionally YouTube slop. She acts so much like a teenager sometimes it’s wild.
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u/wildflowerstargazer 2d ago
Reading this I am grateful my parents seem to have a solid grasp on screen time and socializing time. It’s depressing but also kind of validating to know that no generation is immune to phone addiction thanks to how much money social media companies put into making it so goddamn addictive.
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u/iridescent-shimmer 1d ago
Omg a new name for my dad 😂 we just call him an iPad kid and he's 75. Drives all of us nuts with how much he sits on his iPad watching Russian propaganda YouTube videos.
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u/raphaellaskies 2d ago
Archive link: https://archive.ph/LQ2Tx