The Phone-Based Retirement Is Here (theatlantic.com)
- Reference: 0180452197
- News link: https://tech.slashdot.org/story/25/12/24/1952241/the-phone-based-retirement-is-here
- Source link: https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/2025/12/do-your-parents-have-screen-time-problem/685424/
[2]non-paywalled source
typically associated with teenagers, a phenomenon The Atlantic's Charlie Warzel has dubbed "phone-based retirement." A 2019 Pew Research Center study found people 60 and older spend more than half their daily leisure time -- four hours and 16 minutes -- in front of screens. Nielsen reported this year that adults 65 and up watch YouTube on their TVs nearly twice as much as they did two years ago. 40% of adults aged 59 to 77 reported feeling anxious without device access in a 2,000-person survey.Ipsit Vahia, chief of geriatric psychiatry at Mass General Brigham's McLean Hospital, cautioned against treating all older adults as a monolithic group. The COVID-19 pandemic drove significant tech adoption among seniors as Zoom became essential for family gatherings, church services, and telehealth. Some research suggests device use may be linked to better cognitive function for people over 50, and Vahia noted that technology use in older adults appears to protect them from isolation and loneliness -- the opposite of its effect on teenagers.
[1] https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/2025/12/do-your-parents-have-screen-time-problem/685424/
[2] https://www.msn.com/en-us/technology/consumer-electronics/do-your-parents-have-a-screen-time-problem/ar-AA1SV8y5
Guilty as charged but is there a problem? (Score:2)
So these days I spend a lot of time in front of screens enjoying myself with Facebook and Slashdot as well as computer games. Before I retired I spent a lot of time in front of screens programming. One of the attractions of programming is that it gives you feedback and a sense of achievement when you get the beast to do what you want; now I get that from games... And I'm doing something almost every evening; six or seven evening of socialising is quite enough for any serious introvert.
So let's get some pers
retirees learned how to socialize before internet (Score:3)
The difference between developing brains and senior ones is the seniors learned how to engage with people long before the internet. They can use the technology as tools to augment their social lives, not replace them. Most are comfortable sitting at a table with friends playing cards without devices, just like your parents did...and from all I know, they can pull out their phone and easily keep up with the kids, technology-wise. Kids?...they're not as good in groups without their device crutches, especially Gen Z and younger millennials. Of all the older people in my life, they have no problem putting away the phone from dinner...unless it's really needed, typically to look up something for fun that's related to the conversation at hand (for example, "what was that movie Paul Rudd was in?..."). However, I keep hearing stories of Gen Z kids who take phones on dates and end up looking at them for half the dinner...not sure how much of that is an urban legend.
phone is the new TV (Score:1)
Really, what's the difference between watching slop and playing games on your phone vs watching TV and playing solitaire with actual cards, like my great-grandmother did in her late retirement? As someone who is taking a self-funded career breaky, I can confirm that just figuring out shit to do itself becomes a job after a while.
Re: (Score:2)
Your TV doesn't have an addictive feedback mechanism. All of modern history is 'here's this next great thing' followed by mass profiteering adoption. And years or decades later we say stuff like 'Oh, that depletes the ozone layer'. We're in the mass profiteering adoption phase of 'phones' (what percent of usage is as a phone lol), and we already know that the profiteering comes from increasing engagement (addiction). We don't even know the extent of the negative effects of this technology but if you say
Re: (Score:3)
Good point. My mom, who's in her 90s, used to talk to her friends and others, but after all of them passed on, she these days is a complete phone addict. While being critical of the phone addiction of others. She's not into games, but she is a very heavy Facebook user