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on Gopher (inofficial)
URI Visit Hacker News on the Web
COMMENT PAGE FOR:
URI Grandparents are glued to their phones, families are worried [video]
lencastre wrote 9 min ago:
Sunday, passable weather but still sunny, wonderful river view,
restaurant at 50% capacity, outside tables full. In comes grandma and
grandpa with granddaughter on a stroller. They sit, he starts smoking,
gives a tablet to the granddaughter who goes through the entire meal
with that in front, and grandma spends every pause scrolling whatever
on her phone. Grandpa switches smoking and feeding himself through the
whole time they were there. Not a word spoken at that table. Unreal.
Ritewut wrote 30 min ago:
I've been saying this for a while. For all the talk about kids, seniors
are the ones addicted to phones. Doomscrolling on Tiktok, Facebook,
even locked into mobile games. Its very depressing.
d41dev wrote 41 min ago:
This is something ive started to notice, the older generation becoming
victims to doomscrolling, my dad being one of them. What makes it worst
is that unlike kids who group in the social media world, and therefore
have some ability of discerning between whats real and fake, the older
gen are so gullible when it comes to fake news, propaganda, and ai
generated content.
Not only that but they then go on to spread this false news among there
whatsapp friends
crims0n wrote 5 min ago:
Older generations have an implicit trust for what is on screen
because they grew up in an era where getting something on screen was
not easy, and thus had an implied credibility.
Take advertising as an example. Before Google Ads and the so-called
democratization of advertising, it was expensive, and you didn't get
an ad on a TV program or a national publication without some level of
quality and/or trust behind your product.
Similarly, content was not easy to produce and certainly not cheap to
get in front of eyeballs in the limited medium that was television.
People were selective in what they watched so in order to be watched
it needed to meet a minimum threshold for quality.
These days however, the barrier to entry for advertising and content
are so low that any implicit trust should be ridiculous.
Unfortunately for our parents and grandparents however, that is what
they know - and old habits die hard.
CompoundEyes wrote 1 hour 27 min ago:
I see it a different way. Parents reach a period in life where their
kids strike out on their own and want little to do with them beyond a
safety net. Thatâs normal and natural and the parents move onto a new
phase too. In fact they might just not be that into you anymore. Itâs
ok if visits upset their routine and holidays are somewhat irritating.
Same for being not overly enthusiastic about taking on care giving
roles for grandkids. Theyâre still individuals and itâs not like
old age causes someone to lose their inner world. Theyâve seen a lot
and not as much is novel likely. Theyâre facing loss, mortality and
decline. If they feel compelled to scroll let em scroll. Iâm so glad
assistive technologies and a11y will be there when Iâm decrepit so I
can have something more stimulating than TV. Maybe ask grandma to play
some Lethal Enforcers the next time you visit youâd be surprised â
mine did.
borski wrote 26 min ago:
Except that doomscrolling causes aged folks to deteriorate in health
faster than being active in some way, just like for everyone else.
If it were simply that they weee living their own lives, I donât
think anybody would take issue with that.
But they arenât - they are spending their lives on their phones,
doomscrolling, which is much more likely to cause accelerated aging.
No, I donât have a study for this, but it is not a secret that
being active and not on your phone improves health outcomes.
tcskeptic wrote 35 min ago:
My parents moved from Texas to Chicago this year to be near my sister
instead of me (their son) because in their very traditional minds
they need to be taken care of by a daughter in their old age. I get
to send checks. I thought it was a terrible idea, they have friends
and family here and Chicago is very cold. That being said they moved
into a community of her 11 kids and their spouses and their kids â
probably 30+ relatives in their orbit. And they are surrounded by
people who love them and help them. Itâs really been good for
them. Much less scrolling and much more conversation, group meals,
board game playing, storytelling.
MattGaiser wrote 42 min ago:
> Parents reach a period in life where their kids strike out on their
own and want little to do with them beyond a safety net. Thatâs
normal and natural and the parents move onto a new phase too.
This is at best extremely cultural. It is certainly not a global norm
and not really viewed as desirable, just necessary.
Average American doesn't move very far at all from their parents and
America is where the idea of time limited parenting is most
prevalent.
URI [1]: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/12/24/upshot/24up-f...
rafaelmn wrote 46 min ago:
> Thatâs normal and natural and the parents move onto a new phase
too.
Is it really ? I would say the "natural" way of things is older
generation gets supported by children and they help take care of
grandchildren while their children are working. The whole late
retirement/both parents working situation we have these days is
reliably leading to a population collapse.
tossandthrow wrote 1 hour 3 min ago:
I think this misses the point.
Excessive scrolling is like excessive eating, smoking, or snorting
coke.
It is not healthy and not indicative of a full filling life.
hsuduebc2 wrote 1 hour 29 min ago:
I must admit. My parents we're right the whole time. Staring at the
screen for a whole day is truly unhealthy and they should go to play
outside instead.
This whole thing is beyond ironic.
HackerThemAll wrote 1 hour 34 min ago:
Old people are wonderful relays from paid trolls and propaganda to
their peers, unwittingly spreading and amplifying lies and political
agenda in social media. They're often retired, having entire days at
their disposal, wasting them on forwarding sh*t back and forth.
pndy wrote 1 hour 40 min ago:
Over 3 years ago I was in the hospital - they put me on shared room
with other men of various ages. The oldest ones liked to talk for
hours, doing all sorts "memberberries", elaborated expertises on
current state of European, world affairs. Because what the hell else
you can do when you have vertigo or tampons in your nose and you need
to lie down.
Anyway, the oldest over 80-something man was given some older Samsung
phone by his great-grandson with instruction to launch tiktok whenever
he feels bored. And bloody hell, that thing looped so much content with
every launch but this man still tried hard to find something remotely
interesting. I wouldn't say he was glued but that's a random guy who
liked to attend his orchard and bees, going fishing etc. - he had
something to do in the real world.
I'm witnessing more elderly people around me actually struggling using
touch-capable devices - it's like they're smacking fingers in
frustration that there's no tactile sensation. They were told that
there are buttons to press/tap but there's no feedback they'd expect.
For them smartphone screen is no different than tv.
tossandthrow wrote 1 hour 1 min ago:
It is well known that smartphones can be difficult to use with dry
skin - like most elderly have
pcblues wrote 1 hour 41 min ago:
"But is this shift actually worth worrying about? Or are younger people
just projecting their own anxieties about screen time onto their
parents and grandparents?"
False dichotomies can either be the worst thing that happened to
humankind or a pathway to a new way of understanding each other.
SoftTalker wrote 1 hour 50 min ago:
Before smartphones they sat at home and watched game shows and TV
evangelists, and listened to Rush on the radio. Which is worse?
Nux wrote 1 hour 8 min ago:
Smartphones.
WastedCucumber wrote 1 hour 52 min ago:
The article in question:
URI [1]: https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/2025/12/do-your-parents...
reactordev wrote 2 hours 3 min ago:
Social media is a cancer and more people need to realize this. No
amount of platforming will fix this. Itâs designed to extract
behavioral traits about you. Itâs designed to spy on your shopping
and browsing habits. Itâs designed to build a model of you. Everyone
fell right in.
visarga wrote 42 min ago:
> No amount of platforming will fix this.
The problem with social media is precisely the platform, it ranks
what keeps people addicted, seeing more ads. Creators conform to the
Algorithm and produce slop to capture some of that scarce attention.
Nobody cares about users. Same shit happens on Google Search,
YouTube, Amazon Search, Google Store, App Store... all platforms
produce shitty feeds and search results. And before them we had TV
and newspapers as slop making platforms.
everdrive wrote 2 hours 17 min ago:
This feels similar to how you'll see rows and rows of elderly people
mindlessly pushing the slot machine buttons in casinos. It makes me
wonder if impulse control starts breaking down for that crowd.
Of course, I also wonder if non-digital natives also just have less of
a thick skin for this sort of thing.
nolist_policy wrote 2 hours 31 min ago:
Wait till you see the grandparents glued to the TV.
kevin061 wrote 2 hours 35 min ago:
Before smartphones and TikTok it was casino TV at 3AM, TV infomercial
shopping, and the like.
gcanyon wrote 2 hours 35 min ago:
Time to sign off HN, I guess :-)
On a serious note YT shorts are on my radar for "things I spend too
much time on that deliver minimal value."
hsuduebc2 wrote 1 hour 42 min ago:
In my opinion it's best from short content feed out there but it's
still useless. Too much AI slop in there. Needles to say I did get
some interesting creators in there but I believe people I'm searching
for are using YouTube as long videos platform and do not properly use
the short term format.
xnx wrote 2 hours 37 min ago:
I really wish iPhone/Android had better parental controls so I could
monitor my dad's screen time and the type of content he was allowed to
see on YouTube.
Cpoll wrote 2 hours 36 min ago:
The recontextualisation of "parental" is very amusing.
tromp wrote 2 hours 16 min ago:
As nicely illustrated in this Young Sheldon episode fragment:
URI [1]: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/Nd90rFPYVnc
fhdkweig wrote 56 min ago:
I would have gone with South Park's murder porn episode in which
the kids accidentally got the parents interested in Minecraft.
impure wrote 2 hours 40 min ago:
I was reading up on some RCTs on social media and mental health
recently and one of the surprising findings is that social media is
actually worse for older people.
tietjens wrote 2 hours 17 min ago:
Can you share some things you were reading?
alwa wrote 18 min ago:
Not OP, and Iâve been looking at more meta-analyses than RCTs,
but:
* Lei et al 2024 metaanalysis, generally positive associations but
no causal evidence for psychosocial effects, especially when the
social media use is family-directed - [1] * Balki et al 2022,
metaanalysis, same thing: good for reinforcing existing real-human
social connections, overcoming barriers to/increasing regularity
and frequency of contact, acquiring access to resources; isolating
to use outside that context; regular and frequent contact much more
effective than occasional or episodic: [2] My overall impression
seems to be what common sense tells us: to the extent it lets you
overcome aging-related obstacles to interacting with real people,
great; to the extent itâs brain rot, itâs isolating.
URI [1]: https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/international-psyc...
URI [2]: https://aging.jmir.org/2022/4/e40125/
impure wrote 37 min ago:
This is the one I read: [1] which says how older participants
benefit more from restricting social media use.
URI [1]: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2666560...
krackers wrote 2 hours 38 min ago:
That makes sense, they haven't "built immunity".
ellyagg wrote 2 hours 42 min ago:
My aunt is 80 and thank goodness she has an iPhone. Sheâs bedridden
and spends all day on it. She has no children but I lived with her for
a while when I moved out of my parentâs, and we text often.
borski wrote 23 min ago:
Someone bedridden is not the focus of the article or conversation;
once you are no longer capable of being active, it is obviously true
that youâll partake in more sedentary activities.
colechristensen wrote 2 hours 24 min ago:
The concern is what you're doing when you're getting older but still
able.
The decline is accelerated by muscle weakness which is accelerated by
sitting around all day looking at screens.
alansaber wrote 2 hours 42 min ago:
Reminds me of Chade and The Skill from the Robin Hobb books
exo762 wrote 2 hours 43 min ago:
Amazing opportunity! One more demographic to save via age verification
laws, with a side dish of reliable personalized advertisement profiles.
retrac98 wrote 2 hours 44 min ago:
My parents generation are the most screen addicted people I know.
Absolute slaves to Facebookâs algorithm. Itâs really disheartening
to see.
parpfish wrote 42 min ago:
old folks and children both face the same problem with the
internetâ their initial exposure is to the current internet that
has been ab tested into a hyper-addictive hellscape and they are
cognitively unprepared. Jumping straight into the deep end before you
know how to swim.
Whereas genX and Xennials had the privilege of wading into a
pre-social media internet during their formative years which served
as a vaccine of sorts. We are by no means immune to tech addiction
and disinformation, but we seem much better equipped for spotting
trolls/ragebait and giving the side-eye to addictive dark patterns in
apps
atomicnumber3 wrote 1 hour 11 min ago:
It's weird. I was born with the internet being largely a business or
academic tool, with normal people barely having a reason to have an
email address.
When I was in high school, flip phones could let you text friends, as
long as you didn't mind your parents later using your soul to pay the
phone bill.
When I was in college, the most addictive thing the internet could
offer was foul bachelor frogs and rage comics.
Along the way, I learned how dangerous even those unrefined sugars
were. It was like chewing coca leaves or sugarcane. Enough t get you
a buzz, but not enough to ruin your life. So I know not to touch the
algorithmic fentanyl feeds of TikTok and the like.
But good god, nobody younger or older had any protection from this.
My parents and spouses parents, and my zoomer cousins both basically
got handed giant bags of refined gigasugar without even the vaguest
warnings. I'll refrain from likening it to opiates against because
they are on a whole different level, but good god it does seem more
dangerous than even refined sugar.
Aurornis wrote 2 hours 2 min ago:
Itâs definitely not limited to Facebook. About half of the 50-70
year olds in my family and my wifeâs family are screen addicted
without Facebook. They live on questionable news websites, messenger
apps, Nextdoor, and some others.
Itâs strange to hear a 60-something rant about how evil Facebook is
and then go on to regurgitate countless conspiracy theories they
picked up from whatever websites theyâre reading this month.
The parents who scroll Instagram and Facebook feel downright tame in
comparison.
parpfish wrote 41 min ago:
I shouldnt be surprised that my mom is obsessed with her
smartphone. As a kid, I remember her talking with friends on the
landline phone for what seemed like HOURS
pndy wrote 1 hour 16 min ago:
For about 2-3 years now youtube itself is flooded with countless
channels producing generated content. Whoever are the people behind
this they know what they're doing and what kind of stuff will give
them views and attention from vulnerable audience.
There's fueling political and social rage with "news", casting
doubts on family relations with "true life stories"
(daughter-in-law threw me out of my house), religious "coaching"
(dead since end of 60s Padre Pio gives you life lessons and
"secret" prophecies), worthless tips and tricks (don't eat this nut
if you're 50yo woman or your hair will fell off), lewd promotion
with twist on history (sexual violence in every thumbnail) or
tourism (women in country of x are "ready" all the time). So on and
so on.
So I'd say it's not that much strange if you look closely what kind
of the content older people can walk onto. And this is just
youtube.
blakblakarak wrote 2 hours 24 min ago:
My Dadâs got early stage dementia and Facebook is an absolute
nightmare. The apps infested with AI slop and the algorithm seems to
fill his feed with stuff designed to get him worked up (currently
badly behaved cyclists even though he no longer drives).
gzread wrote 2 hours 19 min ago:
Mine got Israeli propaganda and kept texting me so often about
Hamas and Muslims that I had to block him.
talon8635 wrote 1 hour 54 min ago:
Mine got Iranian propaganda and kept texting me so often about
IDF and Jews that I had to block him.
KoftaBob wrote 1 hour 18 min ago:
Iran's a sideshow compared to Tel Aviv's Hasbara spin factory.
wortelefant wrote 2 hours 48 min ago:
Taking grandmas unpaid care work for granted - no longer possible.
Outrage!
gammalost wrote 2 hours 6 min ago:
More: If you want to spend time with your grandkid please do not just
sit besides him, phone in hand. If you do not want to then that's
fine
50208 wrote 2 hours 48 min ago:
Seniors are the most vulnerable people on the internet, the most likely
to be fooled by disinformation, the most likely to vote, and are one of
the biggest threats to civil society. Boomers are destroying what
previous generations have built.
allendoerfer wrote 2 hours 21 min ago:
Here in Germany they also ignored the demographics, so our social
insurance systems (retirement but also health) are heading towards a
catastrophe, because there is no capital backing them. They are
fundamentally relying on the next generation being bigger or at least
equal. This has turned them essentially into Ponzi schemes. The
taxpayer has to jump in, making the state less and less able to do
anything at all. Of course they now collectively avoid responsibility
and slowly milk the young - their own children - dry.
It is truly the most egoistic generation ever.
mech422 wrote 23 min ago:
It's going to be interesting when the Millenials retire - IIRC,
that generation was almost as large as the boomers. Gen-Z/Gen-Alpha
that are going to be supporting them are a LOT smaller.
heraldgeezer wrote 1 hour 32 min ago:
You are describing every pension system in the world.
allendoerfer wrote 29 min ago:
ChatGPT thinks, that in the US social security makes up about
30-40% of the retirement income of a typical American, while the
German system makes up about 80-85% of a retired German. Home
ownership rate in Germany is also way lower.
Germany is an outlier in that there is no capital backing for
that generation whatsover. The problem has been known for 30
years, they just chose to ignore it.
tossandthrow wrote 30 min ago:
Well, he explains all deferred spend.
Deferred spending is quite unnatural. That I can work 1 hour
today and buy youghurt in 2 years is an artifact of our system.
But this also relies on someone making that youghurt in 2 years
from now.
It is that key dogma that will likely be under pressure for
future pensioners.
k2enemy wrote 2 hours 22 min ago:
And also the most likely to fall victims to scams. An elderly family
friend lost millions to a pig butchering scam.
rrr_oh_man wrote 2 hours 45 min ago:
> the most likely to vote
Well... who's fault is that.
HNisCIS wrote 2 hours 43 min ago:
It's because election day is a weekday and the rest of us have to
keep up with the grind. It's entirely because they don't have jobs
SoftTalker wrote 1 hour 53 min ago:
It's been this way for 100+ years (probably much longer) and
people found a way to vote. It's easier than ever in most places
today, with early voting, mail-in voting, whatever other options
are available.
dabinat wrote 1 hour 7 min ago:
In some states itâs easier now; in some itâs much harder.
URI [1]: https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinio...
ViktorRay wrote 2 hours 41 min ago:
Early voting exists in many states. Even in these states youâll
find that younger folks hardly vote.
susam wrote 2 hours 53 min ago:
Fortunately, I could never get used to the small screens of mobile
phones as a serious computing or web browsing device. So my use of my
mobile phone is limited to basic tasks like making calls, sending
messages, and sometimes, reluctantly typing emails when I don't have a
laptop handy.
My primary computing and web browsing device remains my laptop, with
Emacs and Firefox being my main tools. One thing that does manage to
distract me sometimes is YouTube recommendations. As a result I have
written a little userscript for myself to disable shorts and
recommendations: [1] So far the userscript has been successful. As a
side effect of disabling the recommendations sidebar, the video panel
expands to occupy a larger part of the screen which I quite like. Here
is a screenshot: [2] Also, I still depend heavily on physical
textbooks, a rollerball pen and a stack of plain A4 paper for most of
my learning and exploration activities. This routine has helped me to
stay away from modern attention media too.
URI [1]: https://github.com/susam/userscripts/blob/main/js/ytx.user.js
URI [2]: https://susam.github.io/blob/img/userscripts/ytx.png
pcblues wrote 1 hour 35 min ago:
Writing with a pen has a lot of unseen benefits.
Fine-motor skills connected to memory, etc.
Doesn't take much to find the science.
Also, avoiding interruption is good for your train of thought.
If a train of thought doesn't matter, then stay online and leave your
phone able to interrupt you.
It's your "choice" (tm)
Seriously, try everything including the things you don't think will
work for your sense of peace, so you know, IOWA (I over-worry always)
Peace to you all.
asib wrote 1 hour 41 min ago:
If you press t key you will get a full width video player.
serial_dev wrote 2 hours 39 min ago:
Screenshot not found.
nicbou wrote 2 hours 47 min ago:
Try Unhook (desktop) and Untrap (iOS). At this point, my YouTube
experience is just the channels I subscribe to, and the video player.
It reduced my usage to almost zero.
I'm not exactly curing cancer, but my media consumption is more
moderate and mindful now.
l72 wrote 1 hour 19 min ago:
Just add channels you like to your rss feed. It works great with
freshrss.
Or if you want to get fancy use tubearchivist with the Jellyfin
plug-in.
toomuchtodo wrote 1 hour 4 min ago:
TIL tubearchivist has a Jellyfin plug-in. Cheers.
nomel wrote 2 hours 18 min ago:
Same thing can be achieved (mostly) by disabling youtube watch and
search history. It causes the home page to be blank, and all
recommendations under any video are usually from your
subscriptions, related your subscriptions, or directly related to
the video.
politelemon wrote 2 hours 7 min ago:
This is the simplest and most effective solution, Cheers
Simulacra wrote 3 hours 6 min ago:
Maybe a solution is to spend more time with grandparents, so that they
have something more than just technology to keep them company.
gedy wrote 2 hours 43 min ago:
Sure, but I've seen since the 70s old folks just staring at TV all
day, so it's not just a mobile phenomenon either.
HerbManic wrote 2 hours 7 min ago:
Very true, phone addiction is that taken to a new level but the
same underlaying issues remain.
AngryData wrote 2 hours 44 min ago:
As the old saying goes, you can lead a horse to water but you can't
make him drink.
eYrKEC2 wrote 2 hours 35 min ago:
In our household, the worst offenders of phones at the dinner
tables are the grandparents.
It's as gross as 2 knuckles deep in your nose.
foobarchu wrote 2 hours 46 min ago:
Doesn't always help. My mother (of grandparent age but coincidentally
had 5 kids who didn't want to procreate) stares at her phone 95% of
the time when I visit. I'll be telling a story and she's on Facebook,
doesn't even look up. She's even been called out in it by my sibling
who lives with them, to no avail.
Luckily she doesn't fall for right wing propaganda all over the
Internet, but she sure does fall for every single piece of Trump rage
bait out there.
toomuchtodo wrote 2 hours 49 min ago:
If someone would like to and is willing to make the time, thatâs
fine, but you donât owe them this if they are not a good person or
worth spending time with imho. Connection and community is earned,
not a given. My lived experience is there are some good old people
you strive to make time with, some who are fine but I wouldnât go
out of my way to make time for, and some who are just terrible people
who are going to die alone because of who they are. Your life
experience and decisioning process about how and with whom to spend
precious, non renewable time may differ.
Donât set yourself on fire to keep someone else warm.
serial_dev wrote 2 hours 37 min ago:
Itâs all fine, but in that case also do not worry about this
hypothetical old person spending time the way they like to.
toomuchtodo wrote 2 hours 13 min ago:
Certainly, how they spend their time is their choice, concepts of
free will and all that.
analog8374 wrote 2 hours 58 min ago:
I know a lot of old bored retired people.
They need something physical and social. Like softball or something.
But compatible with their decripitude.
I hook them up with each other. There are parties.
Still working on the softball part.
Ideas are welcome
behringer wrote 1 hour 3 min ago:
bulletball
rationalist wrote 2 hours 52 min ago:
> I hook them up with each other. There are parties.
OnlyGrandparents.com?
(I looked it up, the domain name was registered six days ago!)
alwa wrote 1 hour 38 min ago:
If anybody wants to do something with instagran.org, I know
somebody who would be willing to part with it for a good causeâ¦
rrr_oh_man wrote 2 hours 45 min ago:
OnlyGrans.com is available for only $50k
Wistar wrote 2 hours 38 min ago:
Thatâs worth about $5
joe_mamba wrote 2 hours 58 min ago:
I'd love to. The issue is grandparents are in a town with no jobs
ruled by a corrupt government that only steals and embezzles money
and provides no benefits to local taxpayers.
There's a reason youth migrate away to live with roommates in
overpriced big metro areas. That's where all the white collar jobs
are created for college educated people. And everyone in the last 20+
years has been groomed to go to college and take white collar jobs,
plus deindustrialization and offshoring of manufacturing jobs meaning
there's not much in-between well paying white collar jobs and
dead-end neo-slavery food delivery jobs. Maybe I'll be a plumber one
day and move back to my grandparent place if Claude takes my job, who
knows.
p2detar wrote 3 hours 1 min ago:
Yes, but no. From personal experience, even around grandchildren,
TikTok/FB have precedence. Itâs getting sickening and we need to
educate our parents about the harm that "the algorithm" causes. I
just ask myself whether we are even in the position to do so.
edit: typo
DIR <- back to front page