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Grandparents are glued to their phones [video]

bbc.com

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Re: Grandparents are glued to their phones [video]

#131

Post by reactordev »

visarga wrote: post #81
reactordev wrote: post #50

Social media is a cancer and more people need to realize this. No amount of platforming will fix this. It’s designed to extract behavioral traits about you. It’s designed to spy on your shopping and browsing habits. It’s designed to build a model of you. Everyone fell right in.

> 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 be…

Ahh yes, the “It’s always been this way” argument. I was wondering if it was going to show its ugly head.

The difference now is ANYONE can become a TV station. A newspaper. A radio talk show. While I’m all for allowing anyone to do anything, I’m also a fan of curation and quality over quantity. Social media has no value. Because it values nothing.

Re: Grandparents are glued to their phones [video]

#132

Post by al_borland »

Ritewut wrote: post #87

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.

I also see it as an issue because kids model what they see. A parent telling their kids not to be on a phone kind of falls flat when every adult in their life is glued to their phones.

When I go to family gatherings I make it a point to keep my phone in my pocket and not scroll. I don’t want the kids to see that as an example of how to act when getting together with family. Meanwhile, my mom (their grandmother), is glued to Facebook the whole time.

Beyond the bad example, it makes her frustrating to interact with. She’ll mention a news story that came up in her feed. Occasionally it’s one I’m familiar with and I engage, thinking we’re about to have a conversation about this topic… but no. As I’m replying, she mentions the next thing in her feed, she’s already moved on.

Ironically, my dad is probably the most connected person in the family, yet doesn’t do any of that stuff when getting together with family. There are all sorts of loud notifications going off, because he never has anything on silent, but he glances at his watch and carries on with the conversation. But to a point in the video, he maintains a lot of in-person connections and has a really rich social life in his 70s, which I think is rare. So he isn’t looking to fill holes in his life with doomscrolling.

Re: Grandparents are glued to their phones [video]

#133

Post by al_borland »

Induane wrote: post #128
everdrive wrote: post #43

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.

I think it might be that if you don't grow up with something that hijacks you as a kid you don't have the mental equivalent to antibodies. Old people get captured by new dopamine hits moreso than their younger counterparts.

I believe this to be true, and I even think you need to be old.

On several occasions during college I ran into kids that weren’t allowed to play video games as kids. The first time they got their hands on a game, it was all over. They were hooked and it was a problem. They’d skip classes, meals… and just play. If someone tried to intervene, they would throw a tantrum. It was the weirdest thing, but I saw it enough that it seemed like a pattern.

Others of the same age who had games as a kid seemed more able to put it down and not get so emotionally reactive if something came between them and the game.

Re: Grandparents are glued to their phones [video]

#134

Post by al_borland »

ishtanbul wrote: post #108

I see a lot of elderly people watching AI content on youtube shorts, one after another. The monotonic voice is a dead giveaway. Their feeds have optimized around it because they cannot tell the difference. Its sad.

My mom was telling me about how Eminem did a song with some Christian singer she likes. That didn’t pass the smell test for me, I’m sure I would’ve heard about that, but didn’t contest it in the moment.

A couple days later she sent me the video. It was obviously AI, but even said in the video description (if expanded) that it was AI.

I keep thinking if I tell her enough stuff is AI she’ll start to get more skeptical about this stuff or be turned off the platform feeding her all of it, but it doesn’t seem like it.

Re: Grandparents are glued to their phones [video]

#136

Post by al_borland »

gcanyon wrote: post #33

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."

I have a rule that I don’t swipe through shorts. If they show up on my recommendations, I treat them like normal videos to avoid getting stuck in the slot machine.

Re: Grandparents are glued to their phones [video]

#137

Post by mastermage »

BrenBarn wrote: post #127
susam wrote: post #9

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 mana…

It boggles me that anyone is able to get used to phone screens as a serious device for consumption of just about anything, let alone creation (e.g., typing).

consumption is easy. I read alot of Webcomics and well they are literally made for the Phone. Mangas are usualy also fine. Watching Videos also.

The Creation point I completely concur, I hate typing on my phone.

Re: Grandparents are glued to their phones [video]

#138

Post by asimovDev »

mastermage wrote: post #137
BrenBarn wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It boggles me that anyone is able to get used to phone screens as a serious device for consumption of just about anything, let alone creation (e.g., typing).

consumption is easy. I read alot of Webcomics and well they are literally made for the Phone. Mangas are usualy also fine. Watching Videos also. The Creation point I completely concur, I hate typing on my phone.

I sometimes edit photos I took right on the iPhone while on the bus or in a coffee shop and one time I edited a gaming clip through iMovie on the same iPhone. It feels good to use that processing power for something that isn't mobile gaming or reading reddit.

for typing I use the swiping keyboard if I am typing in a language it supports, but I concur it sucks using the mobile keyboard in either horizontal or vertical orientations.

I am not a big fan of reading manga on the phone on the other hand, I much prefer doing it on the tablet. Although I used to read webtoons a lot back when I was still on iPhone 7, which feels tiny in 2026, but felt gigantic back then.

Re: Grandparents are glued to their phones [video]

#139

Post by watwut »

antonymoose wrote: post #103
watwut wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It used to be that YOU help elderly parents. And they they are the patriarch ruling familly and his wife at that time. When the grandma did that help with children, it was at her terms - she was the decision maker to large extend. That arrangement is not working from both sides. Younger generation wants autonomy and expects parents to not try to run things, not to demand more contact then they want etc. Which makes s…

It used to be a two way street, actually. The broader family was just that, a unit. Now it’s little independent atomic cells doing whatever with little to no regard for the bigger picture. Ultimatel, it’s the Boomer me generation that broke this tradition. It’s not weird for a millennial to look back and say “How nice of them to have their cake and eat it too” as I raise children alone and deal with the dilemma of ho…

I really think you did not bothered to check how families historically functioned.

Re: Grandparents are glued to their phones [video]

#140

Post by watwut »

carlosjobim wrote: post #115
watwut wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It used to be that YOU help elderly parents. And they they are the patriarch ruling familly and his wife at that time. When the grandma did that help with children, it was at her terms - she was the decision maker to large extend. That arrangement is not working from both sides. Younger generation wants autonomy and expects parents to not try to run things, not to demand more contact then they want etc. Which makes s…

That's not how it was. When the patriarch became too old, he'd give the farm and the "crown" to the eldest son - who would have more physical and mental strength than him. Thirty or forty year olds in the past wouldn't take any orders from their fathers or mothers. Of course they would help them, as they are family. But the elderly would absolutely have to step aside, and those who were in their prime would call the…

> When the patriarch became too old, he'd give the farm and the "crown" to the eldest son - who would have more physical and mental strength than him.

That would mean very old. They kept main decision power as long as they could. By the time they gave it away, they were not helping with childcare much. Instead, they were cared for. And even with that arrangement, you are ignoring younger sons, daughters and wife's. Because childcare part is not something that concerned men - it was women's area.

> Thirty or forty year olds in the past wouldn't take any orders from their fathers

Yes they did. The dad was 50, that is not nearly old enough to give up power even in your arrangement. And yes, they were frequently pissed about it.

> or mothers.

They were taking orders from mother in law. And if you look at less individualistic societies now, that is the source of large friction - mother in law vs sons wife. Where mother in law expect her to be, basically, a maid and she does not like that at all. A woman marrying into the husbands multigenerational family is the lowest person in the hierarchy of adults, basically.

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