The same tools that are keeping some people connected to reality are blurring the lines of what is real for others
I haven’t included the anecdotes cited by Charlie Warzel in his article for The Atlantic but they’re worth a read. It’s not just kids who spend a lot of time on their devices, but increasingly older people too.
As ever, people are quick to rush to moral judgement, and I’m sure there are plenty of problematic cases of people prioritising scrolling over socialising. However, life is different post-pandemic, and sometimes we judge others in ways we wouldn’t want them to judge us.
Screen-time panics typically position children as being without agency, completely at the mercy of evil tech companies that adults must intervene to defend against. But a version of the problem exists on the opposite side of the age spectrum, too: instead of a phone-based childhood, a phone-based retirement.
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Older people really are spending more time online, according to various research, and their usage has been moving in that direction for years. In 2019, the Pew Research Center found that people 60 and older “now spend more than half of their daily leisure time, four hours and 16 minutes, in front of screens,” many watching online videos. A lot of this seems to be happening on YouTube: This year, Nielsen reported that adults 65 and up now watch YouTube on their TVs nearly twice as much as they did two years ago. A recent survey of Americans over 50 revealed that “the average respondent spends a collective 22 hours per week in front of some type of screen.” And one 2,000-person survey of adults aged 59 to 77 showed that 40 percent of respondents felt “anxious or uncomfortable without access” to their device.
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The thing to remember is that not all screen use is equal, especially among older people. Some research suggests that spending time on devices may be linked to better cognitive function for people over 50. Word games, information sleuthing, instructional videos, and even just chatting with friends can provide positive stimuli. Vahia suggests that online habits that might be concerning for young or middle-aged people ought to be considered differently for older generations. “High technology use in teenagers and adolescents is often associated with worse mental health and is a predictor of sort of more isolation and loneliness, even depression,” he told me. “Whereas in older adults, engaging in technology seems to be protecting them from isolation and loneliness.”
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This is a muddled mess. The same tools that are keeping some people connected to reality are blurring the lines of what is real for others. But rather than rush to judgment, younger people should use their concern to open up a conversation—to put down the phones and talk.
Source: The Atlantic
Image: Frankie Cordoba