
America’s elderly seem more screen-obsessed than the young - CPAhem
https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2019/08/14/americas-elderly-seem-more-screen-obsessed-than-the-young
======
c3534l
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.

~~~
scarecrowbob
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.

~~~
exolymph
> 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.

I don't understand why you disregard selection bias as insignificant. That
factor deserves more than an offhand, brushed-off aside.

The reality is, the old people who _you_ regularly interact with are XYZ. We
can't conclude anything about old people in general based on your personal
experiences.

~~~
ridgeguy
For me, his data that the old people he interacts with are XYZ are both
comforting and a motivational existence proof.

~~~
gambiting
Sure, but it _really_ does depend on who you interact with. My aunt runs a
care home, and I had this discussion with her once - she said something like
"oh I dread getting old, you can't do anything anymore, your memory goes, you
can't go to the toilet by yourself, you can't dress yourself, moving anywhere
can kill you....being old is horrible!", to which I replied that you know, you
probably feel that way because 100% of old people you interact with on the
daily basis are like this. Those who are well just don't go into care homes
when they are old, so you never see them, but they are definitely out there.

------
m-i-l
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.

~~~
neltnerb
We mostly got the grandparents on facebook because they kept complaining about
not getting photos in the mail anymore. This give them the ability to see the
photos of the grandkids and great grandkids in the system that their kids and
grandkids actually use.

Of course I'm more than a little nervous about facebook radicalization and
scams, but we made sure she does things like not use her real photo and
luckily my aunt that lives nearby is very tech-savvy and paranoid. But
unfortunately facebook seems to be the best option for helping more isolated
elderly people connect with their families.

~~~
otras
Preface: this is going to sound like an advertisement, but I promise I'm not
connected in any way. I just like the idea.

Have you heard of NanaGram? ([https://nanagram.co/](https://nanagram.co/)).
It's a service that regularly mails physical copies of photos to someone you
choose, and it's one of the most "of course that should be a product" products
that I've seen recently.

~~~
diminoten
It's a winner of an idea, because Facebook lets us work around the _real_ goal
of grandparents when they ask us for regular updates; attention. Giving our
elderly family members ways of passively observing us defeats their goal of
wanting us to talk to them, but a NanaGram is a specific, actionable gift that
demonstrates this abstract, "Well they must be thinking of me!" concept that
they can then extrapolate however they need.

~~~
aacook
@otras thanks for sharing. It's an honor to be mentioned on HN like this.

One of the big goals of the product is to increase interaction between loved
ones. I wrote about this a bit more at [https://nanagram.co/blog/niche-
start](https://nanagram.co/blog/niche-start) — we have a feature, which allows
you to list names and phone numbers of you and your siblings on a cover photo.
I get reports all the time of grandparents who go down the list, dialing each
grandkid to talk through the photos with them.

------
JohnJamesRambo
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.

~~~
jklp
I see the same thing with my parents though on closer inspection of the data,
65+ yo users use their smartphone less than all the other cohorts on the hart.

~~~
zapita
In my experience older Facebook users can spend a lot of time on their desktop
computer, too.

------
atoav
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.

~~~
Raidion
This is usually called projection.

------
_bxg1
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.

~~~
rolltiide
Gen Z I’m around literally do not post anything that isn't ephemeral and for
friends only, or at all. Also more and more routine social media detoxes.

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.

~~~
checktheorder
Agreed. I'm one of those oddball half-GenX/half-millennials, but I spend a lot
of time around Gen Z's. (Not in a creepy way, I'm just the eldest cousin in a
huge close extended family.) I think the way Gen Z handles tech is awesome.
They're quick to apply skepticism, common sense, and a concern for privacy. I
think us oldsters could learn a lot from them.

------
xwdv
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.

~~~
cryptoz
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.

~~~
malvosenior
This has happened at other times in the past as well. Video games stagnated in
the 80s pre-Nintendo, Microsoft's "embrace, extend, extinguish" killed a lot
of innovation in the 90s. Macs died a slow an horrible death before Jobs'
revival...

Technology cycles and we're at the end of a large one. Consolidation,
regulatory capture and gaps between generations cause this IMO.

------
zarkov99
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.

~~~
jddj
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.

------
mixmastamyk
Unfortunately, a lot of this is spent watching corporate news-product, leading
to heavily warped worldviews.

~~~
seibelj
I’ve yet to find a news source without an agenda, corporate or non-profit

~~~
Iv
[https://www.afp.com/en](https://www.afp.com/en)

Agence France Presse is a bit of an oddity in terms of structure. Legally a
corporation, it has no shareholders and is forbidden by its bylaws to receive
public subventions. It mostly sell news feeds to other medias.

You may be surprised by the clear design and the absence of ads.

It is managed by an assembly of 18 people, mostly representatives from local
medias (who are all biased in different ways) and 3 members sent by the
government. Its finances are managed by specialized magistrates.

In my opinion it is a great model organization of private-public collaboration
and an example of correctly set incentives for a good neutral news agency.

------
jrochkind1
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.

------
noisy_boy
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).

------
TaylorGood
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.

------
ggm
if I am asked "do you read or watch TV" I read, by 10:1.

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
Retired individuals said to have more free time.

~~~
chubot
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.

~~~
nitwit005
If you look at the graph, which is the very first thing in that article, it's
mostly TV viewing.

------
disordinary
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.

~~~
cryptoz
> but because I thought more people under the age 60 would be behind a
> computer 8 hours a day.

They are, but it isn't counted here (this is "media consumption only", not all
screen time) confusingly enough.

------
vonzeppelin
Older people may watch a ridiculous amount of television but I've only seen
young people staring down at their phones while using the urinal.

~~~
seattle_spring
Honest question: what's wrong with using a phone while you use a urinal?

~~~
vonzeppelin
I don't understand why people are so addicted to their phones they literally
can't even take 15 seconds to concentrate on pissing anymore.

In addition to that you're at a row of urinals with a camera out. It's just
straight up weird to me.

~~~
okmokmz
I don't have to concentrate to pee, so I don't see an issue with looking at my
phone while I'm standing there

------
awillen
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.

~~~
king_magic
10 hours per day looking at a screen certainly fits the bill for "obsessed",
I'd say.

~~~
awillen
When you have difficulty getting out of your house and there aren't many other
activities you can do? Obsession is a state of being actively preoccupied with
something - it's not defined by an amount of time spent doing something. You
have to consider the context and the mental state, not just the length of
time.

------
kwhitefoot
How does someone in their 50s watch six hours of television a day?

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
"Fox News did to our parents what they thought video games would do to us."

-Ryan Scott

~~~
nostromo
All cable news is trash. The world would be better if the entire medium went
away.

~~~
mjevans
It used to actually be OK... Before that big event a bit under 2 decades ago.
I recall that as being the most meaningful turning point. That's when "the
thing the airport left on over the terminal" became 'news-entertainment' (ad
funded hell) and the 24/7 non-stop news-cycle truly gained momentum.

Want to make the news better gain? Kill ads.

~~~
bmurphy1976
I don't know man. It probably got worse around that time, but it sure seemed
like it was already News Entertainment during the first Gulf War.

~~~
mjevans
I'm willing to agree: my baseline was "OK" not "actually good".

------
jeandejean
Isn't it mostly a consequence of more available free time and possibly
boredom?

~~~
buboard
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

------
PieUser
oh how the turns have tabled

------
vesche
And it's only going to get worse.

------
commandlinefan
It makes sense - this is still a novelty to the old(er), but it’s been part of
young people’s lives since they were born.

~~~
jacobolus
Look at the charts. This is mostly television they are talking about. TV is
not a novelty for anyone anymore.

~~~
mc32
Computer and TV (while the largest slice) are holding steady, Smartphone is
the one ballooning.

But these are _mostly_ people at home, not in the job market so what should
they do instead, volunteer, read? I dunno if I would castigate them for this.

