As my grandmother's Parkinson's progressed, she had to give up knitting. Then she gave up all the crafts that she had spent her days on. As things got worse, she could no longer go for walks or visit the neighbors. She stopped cooking, too, another thing she loved. Then she couldn't hold a book still enough to read it, and the contraptions we'd set up for her also stopped working since eventually she lost the coordination to turn a page in a book. We got her an iPad and she could vaguely swipe so she could read. Eventually she needed help even with her iPad.
My point is that the elderly aren't necessarily hypocrites. They have a very different lifestyle than you do. The challenges they face are different, what they're capable of is different.
My father is perfectly able-bodied, but you can only golf so many times a week and I think he's gotten sucked into the news and his screen. He just doesn't have anything else meaningful to do with his time.
I've had different experiences with my 70+ year old friends.
That experience is, of course, self selected for folks who have stuff that they will do with younger folks like me... mostly playing music. But I believe that folks that age are capable of a whole damn lot, assuming that they didn't do a shit-ton of coke or something in their 30s.
My dad is pretty far into Parkinsons, and I think that the disease has more to do with why he doesn't do stuff than anything. It's not that he's not "capable" of stuff... it's that he doesn't want to. That is a fine distinction, I know, and I can see how folks don't think it is even a real distinction. My mom describes the issue with Parkinsons as "I've fallen and I don't want to get up".
I wouldn't bother typing that all out, except that I feel like there is a point worth mentioning to people who don't have a lot of older friends:
there's nothing necessary about stopping doing a lot of what we do as we get older.
Eventually, we all get pain and/or a loss of senses, but it's not (I believe) as completely show-stopping. We don't have to give up on living.
I went rock climbing with a 68-year-old last month, and though the climb wasn't super hard, it was certainly a run for my money... it was 5.6R grade IV, and she led the 45M run out pitch, and the 6km of hiking on the return didn't seem to phase her.
Her feeling was that a lot of folks just stop trying around age 60. Their goals become "let's take the RV to AK some time this year" instead of "I'm going to write the best novel that I have written this year" (that was one of her goals).
She is exceptional, I think.
Still, my point is: if you can golf, you can do a lot more than do FB when you're not golfing.
And I hope there are folks who remind me of that as I approach those ages.
Purpose is so easily given by a computing device in a way the "greatest generation" might have missed, but boomers are possibly starting to figuring it out.
I am fascinated to find out how much it actually matters to longevity, because when millennial get into nursing homes, we're not likely to have any problem continuing to find purpose in the most arbitrary of things. Today there are puzzle corners, eventually there are going to be WoW corners, VR corners.
Some elderly people who live alone like the TV on for company - in many cases they aren't even watching it properly, they just have it on in the background to feel less lonely, like there are other people in the house with them. The article even alludes to this albeit in negative terms "this includes time spent engaged in other activities while the television is blaring in the background". But it is a very different pattern from being "screen-obsessed" and "waste hours ... fritter on chat-shows and repeats of soaps". I think the author could benefit from showing a little more sympathy towards people who have circumstances different from their own.
My mother and her friends are completely lost to Facebook addiction. It’s like they grew up without any immunity or incoulation from video games, MySpace, etc. and Facebook hit with full force to their naive social media immune system. It’s like crack, you can’t get them off of it. Reminds me of the first time I played Everquest. My mother will be at actual family events like birthdays and instead of interacting is mindlessly scrolling her feed in a room alone on a couch instead of making actual memories. It is the only “socialization” she and her friends seem to do now and that is a terrible thing in my opinion.
This matches a pattern I think I noticed in the last few years (maybe it was there all along): those who want to protect the weak by forbidding some aspect of life are often the ones that seem to somehow struggle with it themselves.
E.g. sexuality. Those with a healthy sexuality are literally never the ones asking to protect the youth from it. It is always those for whom it is connected with shame and stigma. So the most safe route to become afraid of the sexualization of the youth seems to be to have shameful sedual thoughts yourself. And because you, a (in your self image) controlled person have troubles with your dirty mind, how bad must it be for the youth?
So when it comes to assigning priorities to potential problems, one seems to look to themselves and extrapolate from there.
I saw similar patterns with parents that have troubles with their TV habits and extrapolate that onto the (in their eyes comparable) activity of siting on a computer.
The problem with computers is, that you can’t really tell what your kid does unless you spy on it or have the trust bond to ask them. They could be playing games, socialize, watch porn, read the news, watch videos, learn programming or editing software — who knows.
The generation of obsessive television watchers thinks kids are doomed because of the internet. The generation of wild parties belives the youth is unhinged (despite evidence against it). Etc. Just because it was aproblem for you doesn’t mean the next generation even wants it.
I have cousins that are around the age I threw my first wild parties and they didn’t even go out ror a drink yet, befause it literally doesn’t interest them.
There seems to be a pattern where a new, addicting technology sinks its claws in, and the it requires a certain amount of youthful malleability to realize the problems it causes and grow out of it. And the older you are, the less of that adaptive ability you seem to have.
My mom plays the most mind-numbing mobile and Facebook (yep) games, instead of realizing there's a bigger world of much higher-quality content out there. Gen Z seems to have the hindsight about social media to resist some of the effects it's had on millennials. Etc.
There is nothing about technology that inherently makes it more alluring for young people. In the future we should actually expect that it will be the elderly who possess the most knowledge about a wide variety of technology and are also the heaviest of users of it.
This expectation that young people would be more predisposed to technology grew from incorrect notions of their natural learning abilities and the technological adoption curve.
There is a generation of people who were born at precisely the right time such that technology was simple and analog enough for them to understand from a young age, and from that point grew in complexity at a pace that was proportional to their own mental development, allowing them to seamlessly transition into more advanced technologies with clearer intuition about how it works. Whatever the next best thing was, they were certain it was better than whatever came before, because progress was exponential for so long, and they had actually seen everything that came before. This may be the only generation that is so obsessed with technology, because all their life has been nothing but exponential technological advancement, and a belief that technology can do anything.
It cannot.
The new generations coming into this world where everyday technology is the best it has ever been and probably the best it will ever be quickly come to understand that, and have no expectations of better things to come. For that they will look elsewhere, back to the old ways. The vintage, the analog, the fleeting.
IMO and in my direct experience, all of my favorite tech has gotten objectively worse over the last few years.
- My phone cannot play music through headphones and charge at the same time. Nor can I use any old pair of headphones with it, and most pairs have to spend time charging before I can use them. My phones 5+ years ago did not have these major usability problems.
- I ordered food while in NYC recently using an app. Out of 5 attempted orders, 4 were stolen by the driver and only 1 order arrived in reasonable condition. The other orders took ~3 hours to sort out. Ordering a pizza 5-10 years ago? No way is that gonna get stolen 4/5 times.
- Google Search on Android (voice) has gotten way worse. It used to offer functions like always offering to search the web (it's Google!), or letting me quickly review past audio search results. Now I cannot see any more past results without redoing the search and waiting for the response. I also cannot find any way to perform a web search on ~50% of my queries. Typing on a desktop computer is way better than voice searching on Android, but I used to have a stellar experience voice searching on Android. It's gone. Will it ever come back?
- Many websites are nearly impossible to use now. I barely use the web because there are so many intrusive ads.
Maybe my point is made. In many many cases, the last few years have seen a sharp drop in technology utility for many regular younger. None of this stuff needs to be getting worse, but it is.
I see that in mine and my wife's parents. It is a pretty good indicator of how much their lives suck or do not suck. The lonelier, less engaged with the world they are the more screen time. And who can blame them.
I was surprised to see that this was the only comment specifically calling out loneliness (and although you didn't call it out by name, depression).
Maintaining a social life takes work, maintaining one into your 70s even moreso; particularly if certain sacrifices which were seen to be necessary at the time were made to raise children who later leave.
Divorce is more common than 40 years ago (I'm not taking a moral stand here, I'm all for leaving toxic relationships but friends are often lost as collateral damage), and grandchildren less.
Social media and television are to our social lives what fast food is to our need to eat.
I'd speculate that if you normalised for loneliness the screen use by age would become a much flatter line.
The graph at the top clearly shows flat TV habits from 2015 to 2019 for the elderly (and more TV use than younger demographics); and increasing computer and smartphone use but still less than younger demographics, even after increase.
So comments about how the elderly might be more succeptible to social network addition seem off the mark. They are still using computer/smartphone less than other demographics, not more.
Props to well-designed infrographic at the top, anti-props to the clickbait title which has contradicting implications.
I feel guilty for enabling this by buying them smartphones. Now my parents are in a room watching their respective daily soaps/Whatsapp junk viral videos and propaganda on Youtube for hours everyday (and late at night as well).
Can confirm. My mom is a Facebook power user and doesn’t even know it. She cares so much about what her high school graduating class is up to; including spats in comments about politics, etc.
My father on the other hand is old school and never opted into social media.
Except that they should have less required work screen time because they're retired? A large variety of today's jobs involve sitting in front of a computer 4-8 hours a day, so on the face of it, retired people have more options.
But the observations of this article aren't that surprising to me. What doesn't require screen time these days?
Mainly exercise, in-person socializing, and reading paper books.
Exercise and in-person socializing seem to be naturally reduced for older people. (Of course I can think of a few people that are exceptions)
And even reading paper books is less of an option for older people with reduced vision. My grandfather lived to a very old age and I believe it was easier for him to watch TV than to read books.
Ironically I feel like almost everything else involves a screen: travelling seems to increase your attachment to your phone, socializing with family is often done through a screen, anything in "media" like making music or video often involves a screen, etc. Planning vacations, doing your taxes, financial planning, etc. are all very screen-centric IMO.
That's surprising, not because of the amount that elderly watch TV (here my grandfather won't move from the living room when the cricket's on), but because I thought more people under the age 60 would be behind a computer 8 hours a day.
The use of "obsessed" is a pretty aggressive conclusion - just because people do something a lot doesn't mean they're obsessed. I'm not obsessed with laundry and vacuuming because I have a dog that sheds a lot.
When I was a kid, my grandma was in a retirement home, and every time I'd go over, she'd have the TV on and blasting at full volume. She wasn't obsessed, there just wasn't much else she could do. She was in bad physical shape, so she couldn't leave her room easily. Her eyes were bad, so she couldn't read or engage in a lot of other activities. Her options were the TV or talking to her kids on the phone, and you can only do the latter for so many hours a week.
Millennials/teens/whatever group of young people you want to compare them to are more physically fit and able to get around, plus they have larger social networks. That enables them to do a much broader range of activities than the elderly, so of course it's likely they'll divide their time among more things than the elderly will.
And a realization how empty life has become without constant worries and work to fill it in. Yeah digital media are also addictive, but primarily they are a better reality than the physical
[+] [-] c3534l|6 years ago|reply
My point is that the elderly aren't necessarily hypocrites. They have a very different lifestyle than you do. The challenges they face are different, what they're capable of is different.
My father is perfectly able-bodied, but you can only golf so many times a week and I think he's gotten sucked into the news and his screen. He just doesn't have anything else meaningful to do with his time.
[+] [-] scarecrowbob|6 years ago|reply
That experience is, of course, self selected for folks who have stuff that they will do with younger folks like me... mostly playing music. But I believe that folks that age are capable of a whole damn lot, assuming that they didn't do a shit-ton of coke or something in their 30s.
My dad is pretty far into Parkinsons, and I think that the disease has more to do with why he doesn't do stuff than anything. It's not that he's not "capable" of stuff... it's that he doesn't want to. That is a fine distinction, I know, and I can see how folks don't think it is even a real distinction. My mom describes the issue with Parkinsons as "I've fallen and I don't want to get up".
I wouldn't bother typing that all out, except that I feel like there is a point worth mentioning to people who don't have a lot of older friends:
there's nothing necessary about stopping doing a lot of what we do as we get older.
Eventually, we all get pain and/or a loss of senses, but it's not (I believe) as completely show-stopping. We don't have to give up on living.
I went rock climbing with a 68-year-old last month, and though the climb wasn't super hard, it was certainly a run for my money... it was 5.6R grade IV, and she led the 45M run out pitch, and the 6km of hiking on the return didn't seem to phase her.
Her feeling was that a lot of folks just stop trying around age 60. Their goals become "let's take the RV to AK some time this year" instead of "I'm going to write the best novel that I have written this year" (that was one of her goals).
She is exceptional, I think.
Still, my point is: if you can golf, you can do a lot more than do FB when you're not golfing.
And I hope there are folks who remind me of that as I approach those ages.
[+] [-] diminoten|6 years ago|reply
I am fascinated to find out how much it actually matters to longevity, because when millennial get into nursing homes, we're not likely to have any problem continuing to find purpose in the most arbitrary of things. Today there are puzzle corners, eventually there are going to be WoW corners, VR corners.
[+] [-] m-i-l|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] JohnJamesRambo|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] atoav|6 years ago|reply
E.g. sexuality. Those with a healthy sexuality are literally never the ones asking to protect the youth from it. It is always those for whom it is connected with shame and stigma. So the most safe route to become afraid of the sexualization of the youth seems to be to have shameful sedual thoughts yourself. And because you, a (in your self image) controlled person have troubles with your dirty mind, how bad must it be for the youth?
So when it comes to assigning priorities to potential problems, one seems to look to themselves and extrapolate from there.
I saw similar patterns with parents that have troubles with their TV habits and extrapolate that onto the (in their eyes comparable) activity of siting on a computer.
The problem with computers is, that you can’t really tell what your kid does unless you spy on it or have the trust bond to ask them. They could be playing games, socialize, watch porn, read the news, watch videos, learn programming or editing software — who knows.
The generation of obsessive television watchers thinks kids are doomed because of the internet. The generation of wild parties belives the youth is unhinged (despite evidence against it). Etc. Just because it was aproblem for you doesn’t mean the next generation even wants it.
I have cousins that are around the age I threw my first wild parties and they didn’t even go out ror a drink yet, befause it literally doesn’t interest them.
[+] [-] Raidion|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] _bxg1|6 years ago|reply
My mom plays the most mind-numbing mobile and Facebook (yep) games, instead of realizing there's a bigger world of much higher-quality content out there. Gen Z seems to have the hindsight about social media to resist some of the effects it's had on millennials. Etc.
[+] [-] rolltiide|6 years ago|reply
Posting IG photos? Posting to your story? they’ll straight up tell me “thats not the move, you don’t want to do that”
Its group chats or bust.
Millennials spent so much time rejecting vertical videos, stories, and all that stuff and are the main ones using the older social networks for that.
[+] [-] xwdv|6 years ago|reply
This expectation that young people would be more predisposed to technology grew from incorrect notions of their natural learning abilities and the technological adoption curve.
There is a generation of people who were born at precisely the right time such that technology was simple and analog enough for them to understand from a young age, and from that point grew in complexity at a pace that was proportional to their own mental development, allowing them to seamlessly transition into more advanced technologies with clearer intuition about how it works. Whatever the next best thing was, they were certain it was better than whatever came before, because progress was exponential for so long, and they had actually seen everything that came before. This may be the only generation that is so obsessed with technology, because all their life has been nothing but exponential technological advancement, and a belief that technology can do anything.
It cannot.
The new generations coming into this world where everyday technology is the best it has ever been and probably the best it will ever be quickly come to understand that, and have no expectations of better things to come. For that they will look elsewhere, back to the old ways. The vintage, the analog, the fleeting.
[+] [-] cryptoz|6 years ago|reply
- My phone cannot play music through headphones and charge at the same time. Nor can I use any old pair of headphones with it, and most pairs have to spend time charging before I can use them. My phones 5+ years ago did not have these major usability problems.
- I ordered food while in NYC recently using an app. Out of 5 attempted orders, 4 were stolen by the driver and only 1 order arrived in reasonable condition. The other orders took ~3 hours to sort out. Ordering a pizza 5-10 years ago? No way is that gonna get stolen 4/5 times.
- Google Search on Android (voice) has gotten way worse. It used to offer functions like always offering to search the web (it's Google!), or letting me quickly review past audio search results. Now I cannot see any more past results without redoing the search and waiting for the response. I also cannot find any way to perform a web search on ~50% of my queries. Typing on a desktop computer is way better than voice searching on Android, but I used to have a stellar experience voice searching on Android. It's gone. Will it ever come back?
- Many websites are nearly impossible to use now. I barely use the web because there are so many intrusive ads.
Maybe my point is made. In many many cases, the last few years have seen a sharp drop in technology utility for many regular younger. None of this stuff needs to be getting worse, but it is.
[+] [-] zarkov99|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jddj|6 years ago|reply
Maintaining a social life takes work, maintaining one into your 70s even moreso; particularly if certain sacrifices which were seen to be necessary at the time were made to raise children who later leave.
Divorce is more common than 40 years ago (I'm not taking a moral stand here, I'm all for leaving toxic relationships but friends are often lost as collateral damage), and grandchildren less.
Social media and television are to our social lives what fast food is to our need to eat.
I'd speculate that if you normalised for loneliness the screen use by age would become a much flatter line.
[+] [-] mixmastamyk|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] seibelj|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] WalterBright|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pessimizer|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] alexashka|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jrochkind1|6 years ago|reply
So comments about how the elderly might be more succeptible to social network addition seem off the mark. They are still using computer/smartphone less than other demographics, not more.
Props to well-designed infrographic at the top, anti-props to the clickbait title which has contradicting implications.
[+] [-] noisy_boy|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] TaylorGood|6 years ago|reply
My father on the other hand is old school and never opted into social media.
[+] [-] ggm|6 years ago|reply
but, if I am asked "do you spend time in front of a screen" the answer is different because I read on a kindle.
I'm in the age cohort in question btw. I gave up TV about two years ago, around the time I also stopped doing FaceBook.
[+] [-] nitwit005|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] chubot|6 years ago|reply
But the observations of this article aren't that surprising to me. What doesn't require screen time these days?
Mainly exercise, in-person socializing, and reading paper books.
Exercise and in-person socializing seem to be naturally reduced for older people. (Of course I can think of a few people that are exceptions)
And even reading paper books is less of an option for older people with reduced vision. My grandfather lived to a very old age and I believe it was easier for him to watch TV than to read books.
Ironically I feel like almost everything else involves a screen: travelling seems to increase your attachment to your phone, socializing with family is often done through a screen, anything in "media" like making music or video often involves a screen, etc. Planning vacations, doing your taxes, financial planning, etc. are all very screen-centric IMO.
[+] [-] disordinary|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cryptoz|6 years ago|reply
They are, but it isn't counted here (this is "media consumption only", not all screen time) confusingly enough.
[+] [-] unknown|6 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] vonzeppelin|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] seattle_spring|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] awillen|6 years ago|reply
When I was a kid, my grandma was in a retirement home, and every time I'd go over, she'd have the TV on and blasting at full volume. She wasn't obsessed, there just wasn't much else she could do. She was in bad physical shape, so she couldn't leave her room easily. Her eyes were bad, so she couldn't read or engage in a lot of other activities. Her options were the TV or talking to her kids on the phone, and you can only do the latter for so many hours a week.
Millennials/teens/whatever group of young people you want to compare them to are more physically fit and able to get around, plus they have larger social networks. That enables them to do a much broader range of activities than the elderly, so of course it's likely they'll divide their time among more things than the elderly will.
[+] [-] king_magic|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kwhitefoot|6 years ago|reply
I'm 63 and even on days when i am not working I'd be hard put to find six hours to sit in front of a television.
I'm not American; but I can't see what difference that should make.
[+] [-] jdkee|6 years ago|reply
-Ryan Scott
[+] [-] jeandejean|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] buboard|6 years ago|reply