39 ms·

What if we talked about over-60s’ screen time as we talk about young people’s?

430 points by okasaki 4y ago

mradek 4y ago
Wasting time is relative. Everyone always has some excuse for it, for why they think it’s okay to burn their brain on TV WoW TikTok whatever. Just do your thing and live your best life. Unsubscribe from what other people think.
fuzzfactor 4y ago
I think some people are just more hypnotically attracted to the action occurring in their field of vision, and moving pictures stimulate this primal response. Emotional response to artificial visual stimuli was first exaggerated for some with the arrival of silent movies, made more realistic (even when complete fantasy) with talkies and then color film. Television turned this from a designated entertainment event into an everyday occurrence in the home when it was still black & white, then color TV upped the ante, but until cable came along nobody imagined that anybody would want to have it turned on all the time. The few broadcast channels in any one market used to sign off after a certain time at night then not resume programming until the next morning. There were 13 VHF channels but no market had anywhere near that number to choose from within radio range. Then come personal style computers which were powered on all the time at the office, even if they were not that interesting people got accustomed to it, and did some of the same thing when they got more popular for the home. Laptops took the screen on the road and internet made it more interesting on a 24/7 basis, wifi broadened that and more powerful smartphones put it over the top everywhere. Each step of the way focusing on smaller-than-realistic horizons.
malfist 4y ago
The average 65 year old consumes 6 HOURS of TV a day? Jesus. No wonder they have a warped perception of politics. That little fearbox is controlling their lives.
- AmericanChopper 4y ago
  My grandma probably watches about that much TV, but it’s mostly quiz shows and live sports. Not sure I’d leap to the same conclusion as you here.
  - glitchc 4y ago
    Your grandma watches live sports? So unusual and yet so intriguing. Which ones are her favourites?
    - Symbiote 4y ago
      My grandma would watch cricket (which is the whole 6 hours sometimes...), snooker, tennis, cycling and Formula 1. My dad would watch the cricket by seeing the TV to the Teletext page for the score, and watching it refresh every minute. (If you're young or from America, this is life watching a Web page refresh.) There is only slightly less movement than watching actual cricket.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
    - AmericanChopper 4y ago
      Cricket, tennis and rugby union are her favourites. But she’ll watch whatever’s on if there’s nothing better to do. She’s loving the World Cup at the moment… Edit: Incase anybody’s wondering, I don’t think Symbiote and I have the same grandma. But I don’t know for certain.
    - astura 4y ago
      My grandma absolutely loves watching (American) football.
- louison11 4y ago
  Sad indeed. Many people waste the last 2-3 decades of their lives on TV. I’m not entirely sure why, but an assumption is that they prob didn’t live a very sovereign life in their younger years, have grown increasingly disconnected from themselves through life, and by the time they’re older have completely lost track of what makes them come alive/is healthy.
throwaway22032 4y ago
The idea here seems to be that it's OK for people to watch hours of TV a day every day. I find it amusing that they consider TV-watching "the traditional British way". It's the traditional working class British way, sure. It's a status symbol here to _not_ have a TV, or to have a tiny one like 15" in a large room. The issue is really that doing _anything_ mindlessly is a waste of life. TV, flicky flicky lighty box things like TikTok, and World of Warcraft enable that in exactly the same way. And yeah, I played years of that shit when I was younger. A complete waste. Am I still here? Sure. Did it have some minor benefits? Sure. Would I recommend it? No, huge waste of time. There's also an enormous difference here in that older people often can't really do much else. My grandma finds it difficult to read books because her eyesight is going and lots of physical pursuits are out for obvious reasons. Cosying up in front of the TV is comfortable for a woman living out the end of her days.
- HappySweeney 4y ago
  While too much of anything is detrimental, I don't find watching TV to be a waste if you are enjoying yourself. Recreation is important for mental health.
  - birdyrooster 4y ago
    If one is like I used to be, TV is mindless but it can be mindful. After meeting someone who changed my perception of the medium, I find that TV is one of the most engaging and challenging exercises. You are constantly searching for symbolism, inspirations and trademarks of actor/writer/director. There is so so much to do when watching TV that anyone who says it’s a waste is missing a huge opportunity!
    - standardUser 4y ago
      TV got good. It's hard to even talk about "TV" these days because we're combining artfully-crafted, thought-provoking shows like The Leftovers or The Wire with things like Big Bang Theory and Two and a Half Men. Same medium, but radically different forms of content.
patall 4y ago
I would probably prefer if my grandparents (~80) watched TV for 6h a day. Instead, they spend a similar amount of time on their smartphones, reading conspiracy blogs. And recently started to prepare for the imminent doom. Only thing worse would be an elder with dementia that is constantly shopping on amazon...
- cameronh90 4y ago
  To be fair, at age 80, doom is probably fairly imminent.
  - WorkerBee28474 4y ago
    While the average lifespan (American stats) is about 79, if someone makes it to 80 their average lifespan is 88.
- pneumic 4y ago
  My 70+ parents are the same but the other way—obsessed with all things Donald Trump and getting angry about him. Hours and hours lost to a politician they despise. (edited for clarity)
  - mathlover2 4y ago
    Sorry to hear that.
    - dylan604 4y ago
      It could be the opposite of what you're thinking and that they are not actually Trump fans, but getting angry about still having to deal with Trump. This describes a lot of the older folks that I know.
      - pneumic 4y ago
        Yeah, that's what I meant, wish I was clearer.
notacoward 4y ago
Not just over-60s, and not just TV screens. Yes, there are plenty of people older than I am (at 57) who spend way too much time watching TV. There are also plenty of people right around my age who spend all day listening to NPR or podcasts. Their eyes might not be elsewhere, but their brains sure are. And you know who I most often see actively using their phones while driving? Not the kids, and not the old folks either. It's the 40- and 50-somethings, the tradespeople in pickups and the suburban parents in minivans, flying down the road with their eyes glued to a screen instead where they should be. Entertainment addiction takes many forms, and the author makes a good point that the kids with their phones aren't the only ones who deserve to be taken to task for it.
- tomcam 4y ago
  What TV do you watch? Streamed? Broadcast? Both? What are some shows you like? I'm a senior but am stuck watching reruns of "Justified", "Life", and "Tehran".
PaulHoule 4y ago
Watch out! Over 60's vote and they can defend themselves from your finger wagging and anyone who tries to make them feel uncomfortable.
sys_64738 4y ago
Retired folk have lots of time on their hands so can watch as much TV as they want. They also don't need to be told by others how to spend their remaining years.
ortusdux 4y ago
I've been hearing more and more anecdotal stories about children blocking their parents access to Fox, OANN, etc. via parental controls and wifi routers. https://www.reddit.com/r/BestofRedditorUpdates/comments/yz7ya7/victim_of_qanon_asks_how_to_block_alt_right_news/ https://www.reddit.com/r/BestofRedditorUpdates/comments/yz7y...
- prawn 4y ago
  Another option to blocking is throttling speed. Make time-wasting (or worse) laborious to access and make the woodworking videos on YouTube full speed.
  - jahsome 4y ago
    I have a deepseated aversion to outright censorship when it comes to my kids' media but this is somehow more palatable to me. What a pleasantly dystopian compromise!
- bogwog 4y ago
  That's actually a really good idea. Someone should sell a pi hole like box preconfigured to block all those aggressive/conspiratorial sites. Maybe make it discrete too, like a small box you plug into an outlet hidden behind some furniture.
- mensetmanusman 4y ago
  I wonder how many realize that censoring information is a human habit as old as time?
gspencley 4y ago
My children are adults now, but when they were growing up we wanted them to pursue productive creative endeavours so that they could learn life skills and figure out what they want to do with their lives. Our goal was to help them achieve self-sufficiency so that they could move out and feed themselves. I'm not 65 yet, but once I am I hope that others will recognize my productive achievements and will leave me the hell alone to do whatever I want to with the rest of my limited time here on earth. If that means sitting on my ass doing nothing - that's my choice and my right. It's not hypocrisy. A child and a retiree are not even remotely comparable. One is accountable to their parents, the other has likely worked their ass off for decades to earn a bit of down time.
- yamazakiwi 4y ago
  I do agree that they are difficult to compare directly as the scenarios are quite different. I can also say that your attitude towards raising children is the minority, most parents will let a tv or tablet babysit for them unfortunately.
- jonny_eh 4y ago
  - DougN7 4y ago
    I don’t understand where this sentiment comes from. Don’t vote?? It’s not like being tired is being dead. The status of the world/country/society still impacts older people too.
    - chrsig 4y ago
      [flagged]
      - Karunamon 4y ago
        Replace "boomers" with any other demographic group if you wish to understand why this is an ugly statement to be making. Hint: it isn't because "boomers" are more vulnerable to misinformation
bell-cot 4y ago
I'm interested in how the over-60s' TV time is being measured. Why - I know a number of older folks who live alone, and claim that they leave the TV on all day - not to watch it, but as a source of "color noise", giving them a comforting illusion of not being at home all alone.
- yamazakiwi 4y ago
  That's a good point, I also do this as it brings some amount of comfort vs being alone with complete silence.
- NoraCodes 4y ago
  This is a great point! I think a lot of people, myself included, do the same thing with YouTube videos or even long Netflix shows; it's playing, I'm half-listening to it, but I'm also accomplishing some annoying or semi-mechanical task. If you asked how much video content I consume, you might be shocked at the answer, but I wonder if we should count that as "wasting time".
- Mountain_Skies 4y ago
  During my childhood, my mother would do that with The Weather Channel. It was, at least at the time, devoid of anything political, and no sex or violence, though the coverage of severe weather could be a bit anxiety inducing. But even running in the background, I'm sure we still absorbed the messaging of commercials to some extent. It's not quite the same thing as actively watching but probably still imparts some degree of impact.
FPGAhacker 4y ago
I haven’t hit my sixties yet, but it won’t be long now. Youth is ignorance, and the only cure is getting older. When that happens you will marvel at how much you thought you knew and understood. You will listen or read the next generation making preposterous proclamations about older people and the older generations. Laughable in their certainty. Judging older people and finding them unworthy. Especially family. You may try to convey to the younger generation how you were just like them once, trying to shortcut the wisdom of age for them. But there are no shortcuts. There is no easy way. So we can watch and reflect, those older than us probably have the same thoughts about us. Those ignorant 60 year olds think they know everything. Wait till they hit 90.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- tomcam 4y ago
  Yeah I'm in my 60s and... not too impressed by the supposed wisdom of my fellow Boomers.
- this_is_for_you 4y ago
  There is wisdom is what you are saying, as I have seen it myself over the years from my younger days to my current age. But there is something that needs to be said, so badly, that I made this account despite swearing off HN commenting for good; or so I thought. (Sorry Dang if this breaks a rule, but this comment really needs to be made.) Here it is: Age in and of itself, does not equal wisdom. One can be wise through long life, yes; but experience is why. If one does not live an experienced life, they will still be just as unwise and potentially as dumb as those who are younger than them. Likewise, someone who has lived a rich and fulfilling life no matter how those events play out, can be just as wise if not wiser than those older than them. So while youth can be ignorance, so too can the egotism of age. This will continue to be a problem in society until the day when everyone can come to agree that our lives are not equal, and never will be; because we cannot experience everything the same way across the world. It is that diversity in experience which is why it is so important that we learn to listen to each other, even if we don't like what they have to say. To expect obedience from anyone due to age alone is just a form of authoritarianism which has no right to exist; especially when the evidence shows abundantly that the older generations didn't get everything right either. Just like how no one in their right mind expects the younger to get everything right as well. It is only the daft and delusional that think they have gotten everything right. And from the looks of things out there in society, we have much more of that going on, than we have any wisdom being shared. As a final word. If you found this wise, consider this. I'm turning 34 soon. And with that said, this is the last any of you will hear from me. This is all I have to say.
JoeAltmaier 4y ago
Really? We conflate the time spend by retired people with the activities of the young and supposedly productive?
- PartiallyTyped 4y ago
  Yes, because the consequences matter. Retired people have significantly more time, and thus have significantly higher capacity to vote and influence society even though they will not experience the long term consequences of said influence. You ought to be worried about who whispers what from sunrise to sundown. On the other hand, we should be very vigilant on the kind of experiences kids get to have as those indirectly influence the future of society.
  - onecommentman 4y ago
    who whispers what…and why A healthy habit that senior executives learn is to ask the question “why are you telling me this (particular fact, among all the facts there are to tell)?” BTW, retired folks don’t have a greater capacity to vote, as compared to all voting age qualified voters. Mobility issues in fact make it harder. Also, depending on the definition of “long-term”, it is definitely true that the elderly will experience the consequences of their actions or, conversely, no one currently living will. Why did you tell me this? :-)
    - skissane 4y ago
      > BTW, retired folks don’t have a greater capacity to vote, as compared to all voting age qualified voters. Mobility issues in fact make it harder. I think a lot of it is simply that many younger people are too busy to vote, or have too many appealing alternatives, or just don't get around to it; retired people have much more time on their hands, so they are more likely to do it. A good way of levelling that playing field is what we have here in Australia – compulsory voting. If you are eligible to vote and don't, the government will send you a letter asking for an excuse, and if they don't think that excuse is good enough (you can appeal their rejection of your excuse to court), they'll fine you (for federal elections it is only AU$20, although if you don't pay that on time, they add another zero on the end). Added to that, voting is always on Saturday, a day which the majority of people have off work – and those who have to work that day (or are observant Jewish/etc), can go to an early voting centre before then, or cast a postal vote. Young people are much more likely to vote when you force them to.
TedDoesntTalk 4y ago
There seems to be no distinction between TV and gaming. It’s all just “screen time.” But the distinction is VERY important. One can be addictive.
- ChoGGi 4y ago
  Both can be addictive.
noasaservice 4y ago
I'm one who did just that - my mom fell into the trap of qanon, trumper, cultist, and worse bullshit. And every time I went over there, she had that idiot box on, blaring foxnews propaganda. I caught her more than a few times down a real rendition of 2 minute hate from Orwell's 1984. So, I turned on the child filters on her tv and removed foxnews, oann, and a few more. Is it ethical? Well, it's gray for sure. But given how unhinged she was getting, sure, I'll take that hit.
- ryandrake 4y ago
  > I caught her more than a few times down a real rendition of 2 minute hate from Orwell's 1984. This is one thing I acutely remember about my grand-dad sitting there watching endless conservative news on the TV: The red-faced build-up and then vocal rage. These shows just hook onto elderly people's emotions and gradually whirl them around in a frenzy until they are visibly upset at "all these horrible things the 'liberals' are doing". He would finally turn off the TV absolutely disgusted at all these imagined problems and conservative fever dreams, thinking he was watching actual news. Pretty sad, and really nothing you can do about it unless you physically intervened and started blocking antenna signals.
- onecommentman 4y ago
  Only did that once for my Mom. She was visiting, and 9/11 happened. Everyone was basically stuck in the house for a few days. Fox coverage was pretty bad for that event, and there was a lot of other better coverage, so I removed Fox from the channels that would show up on the remote. But that was an event-driven sort of thing of direct local significance… If she had invested in FTX and could have been mislead into more bad investments, I might try to have certain puff pieces about Alameda and SBF in Fortune, NYT, WSJ just…disappear.
httpz 4y ago
30 years later, millennials will be on their smartphones while complaining kids these days never come out of their VR world.
- speakfreely 4y ago
  Nice try, zuck. In all seriousness, I suspect this is probably correct. I imagine things will be very VR-oriented and Zuckerberg is actually on the right track, just way too early.
  - over_bridge 4y ago
    Maybe he should have targeted the elderly from the start. People who can't leave the house easily might get more out of the experience. It seems inane to me having a metaverse which is just the real world with bad graphics but without my health and mobility it could be a different story. Maybe market from old on down with this product
  - CameronNemo 4y ago
    just way too early That is far from Meta's only problem. They are well known as a manipulative corporation with little accountability for their actions or care for their users.
    - jahsome 4y ago
      That only means they're likely to become even more dominant, thus proving parent's point.
- Mountain_Skies 4y ago
  That someday EDM will be considered music for the elderly is endlessly amusing.
  - reducesuffering 4y ago
    Nick Swardson bit on that: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z7IlUIi-idA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z7IlUIi-idA
tomcam 4y ago
> Meanwhile, those aged 65 and over spend just under six hours on average watching TV daily. Wait people are still watching broadcast TV? I guess if you're a pensioner in the UK who doesn't have to pay the license it makes sense. Though 6 hours, even of the Beeb, seems a bit nightmarish.
- jahsome 4y ago
  In the US, that's like 2.5+ hours of ads. I just can't understand how these people don't lose their ever loving mind every 7 minutes. In the rare occasion I'm in a hotel or something I almost always turn the TV on out of sheer boredom and find myself absolutely blown away by how obnoxious and prevalent commercials are. Same for terrestrial radio.
  - tomcam 4y ago
    My experience exactly
UncleEntity 4y ago
When I was a kid they were similar concerns about kids spending too much time in front of the TV… And in the 90s about kids spending too much time in front of the Xboxen. Have to ask my parents what they were worried about in the 50s, probably too much time reading books.
- ianmcgowan 4y ago
  Listening to too much degenerate Rock and Roll on the radio.
- wetmore 4y ago
  Just because similar concerns existed does not make them invalid. I was a 2000s kid who spent far too much time playing videogames and on the computer. If I could give my past self advice against doing so, I would in a heartbeat.
sibeliuss 4y ago
As if TV was even remotely related to spending all day scrolling through social media. There's no comparison between the two.
- Mountain_Skies 4y ago
  True, tv doesn't alter its content on the fly minute-by-minute, using an algorithm tuned to your own personal emotional triggers.
googlryas 4y ago
I feel sorry for this lady. Sounds like she had a very boring home life centered around the TV. But that doesn't mean the screen time panic is necessarily wrong, though it is reductive in the sense that it treats all screen time as equal. Chatting with friends is the same as watching cat videos is the same as using MITs OCW is the same as watching porn is the same as popping virtual bubble wrap is the same as reading War and Peace on the kindle app. Likewise, some TV programming can be thoughtful and inspiring and other tv programming can be bland and mind numbing.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
tomcam 4y ago
I love kids being addicted to screens. Bored teenagers are less likely to incite trouble on trains, waiting in line, etc. when they can just be rocking out or Snapchatting.
- seydor 4y ago
  Until rioting becomes a meme
NaturalPhallacy 4y ago
This is fair. My boomer dad is almost never not watching TV...
dredmorbius 4y ago
We did. And by "we", I mean Newton Minnow, former chair of the Federal Communications Commission, and Jerry Mander, advertising executive. Minnow's commentary came in what came to be known as his "Vast Wasteland" speech. <https://vimeo.com/55481067 https://vimeo.com/55481067> You can find a contemporaneous interview of Minnow by Studs Terkel here: https://studsterkel.wfmt.com/programs/newton-minow-discusses-broadcasting https://studsterkel.wfmt.com/programs/newton-minow-discusses... And a recent (2021) take here: <https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2021-05-06/newton-minow-tv-vast-wasteland https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2021-05-06/newton-min...> Audio (MP3): Mander's argument was the book Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television, which is just what it says: four arguments, and not for limitation, change, or curtailment, but elimination of television. Those arguments being that television: - removes the sense of reality from people - promotes capitalism - can be used as a scapegoat, and that - all three of these issues negatively work together (Via Wikipedia) Wikipedia: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Arguments_for_the_Elimination_of_Television https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Arguments_for_the_Elimina...> Internet Archive: <https://archive.org/details/fourargumentsfor00mand_0 https://archive.org/details/fourargumentsfor00mand_0> LibGen: <http://libgen.rs/book/index.php?md5=448E80906BCD92C0AA02235E5E964F9A http://libgen.rs/book/index.php?md5=448E80906BCD92C0AA02235E...> And they were far from the first or only ones. Vance Packard published The Hidden Persuaders on the power of advertising in 1957 (<https://archive.org/details/vance-packard-the-hidden-persuaders-1957 https://archive.org/details/vance-packard-the-hidden-persuad...>). The Frankfurt School looked at (amongst many other things) the role of mass media on culture and politics. There's Dwight MacDonald's classic essay "A Theory of Mass Culture" (1953) <https://is.muni.cz/el/1421/jaro2008/ESB032/um/5136660/MacDonald_-_A_Theory_of_Mass_Culture.pdf https://is.muni.cz/el/1421/jaro2008/ESB032/um/5136660/MacDon...> Noam Chomsky, Neil Postman, Edward Herman, Robert W. McChesney, and numerous others. For what it's worth, I had the luck to grow up in a household without television for many years, and afterwards, only very limited access. The Tube largely repells me now, though other screens do, I confess, have their allure.
- dredmorbius 4y ago
  NB, above was a slightly kneejerk response on my part to misreading "over-60s" as somehow referring to the 1960s. That said, awareness of television as a generally harmful medium has in fact been recognised for quite some time. Along with other mass media. And yes, older adults seem to have their own specific susceptibilities. Kara Swisher speaks and writes fairly frequently over her own issues with her own mother's television viewing and its impact upon her mother's politics and general (mis)understanding of the world.
hn_throwaway_99 4y ago
Such an odd take in my opinion. Just because there isn't a comparative level of concern for older people's excessive screen time doesn't mean we shouldn't be concerned about younger people's. Highest suicide rates have traditionally been among the elderly. Is it then a "moral panic" if we are concerned about rising suicide rates in teenagers?
- girvo 4y ago
  Possibly, it would depend on how the discussion is framed. “Won’t somebody think of the children” should always be looked at critically, because far too often it has nothing to do with the harms those kids face at all — which the article brings up at the end.
- skissane 4y ago
  > Highest suicide rates have traditionally been among the elderly. Is it then a "moral panic" if we are concerned about rising suicide rates in teenagers? I agree with you. Another way of making the same point: The negative impact on those left-behind is much higher for a 15 year old who commits suicide than for an 85 year old. The 15 year old's parents may well spend decades grieving their loss; the 85 year old's parents will be long dead. Given that, I don't think it is unreasonable for society to focus the bulk of its attention and resources on youth suicide rather than elderly suicide.
thenerdhead 4y ago
What if we just talked about moderation in all things and kept to ourselves?
nonrandomstring 4y ago
The question is not now much time you spend at a screen, but who is on the other side of it. Much of the conversation so far concerns time, and the virtues or vices of how we spend it. Not all pastimes are equal. Knitting a jumper, taking a hike, or skateboarding are actions one performs on or in the world. Reading a book is more of an action that the world (the author especially) performs upon you. It is a different frame. Movies and video gaming are somewhere in the middle. Some media forms, such as daytime trash-TV and TiKTok are at the extreme of the passive/receptive frame. It is a pipeline of affect directly to your hypothalamus. Any discussion of harms or benefits must be understood in that light.
- DougN7 4y ago
  I’ve been pondering a bit in this area, especially around things that are addictive harmful. It seems like things that give a pleasure reward for little or no work, and aren’t furthering relationships, are dangerous. They sap motivations (no need to work hard when your feel-good choice is so close). This seems to cover social media/doom-scrolling, porn, drugs and alcohol (at various levels and circumstances), easy hookups(?), constant TV, etc. Still working on the idea…
  - jstarfish 4y ago
    These aren't all inherently bad things when consumed in moderation, and over the course of a lifetime. Sometimes we just need those quick hits of artificially-induced dopamine to give us the drive to push through the responsibilities and pressures of adult life. The problem isn't that the content is itself dangerous, it's that it's being mainlined by [adults and children alike]. Absolutely nothing in life is safe to consume this way-- the sort of drugs that otherwise provide these effects are classified as class-II controlled substances.
  - ted_bunny 4y ago
    Ponder this modern classic, something I throw at everyone who will listen: https://www.stuartmcmillen.com/comic/supernormal-stimuli/ https://www.stuartmcmillen.com/comic/supernormal-stimuli/
- 4y ago
nottorp 4y ago
I've always wondered how someone can talk about the perils of mobile phones and then binge watch lousy TV series.
spoonjim 4y ago
This doesn’t make any sense. Forgive me for being crude but for the vast majority of over 65’s… it just doesn’t matter what they do with their time. They’re waiting around to die. Children will grow up to build the future so what they do or don’t do matters a lot.
- bell-cot 4y ago
  Not to endorse this attitude about my end of the population pyramid - but it does raise an interesting point about how TV screen time was measured for the older folks. In long-term care facilities, hospitals, doctors' offices, etc. - where the TV's are just left turned on all day, "turn it off" isn't an option, and a fair number of the older folks may have failing hearing / eyesight / cognition (so they might have a hard time following the content on the TV, even if they wanted to) - was that "screen time" added into the numbers?
mathlover2 4y ago
Why is it that every time I read an article about modern British politics and culture, I walk away almost feeling happier about the state of the US? It's almost like God, while planning the course of current events, looked at the inhabitants of the US recovering from 4 years of Trumpian misrule and decided to console them by having the original English-speaking developed country end up even worse off than they were. (I'm kidding, of course. God doesn't actually exist, and I know there's a lot of places way worse off than the US or the UK. I'm also not actually this American-centric in my views. My point is that the UK somehow seems worse off these days than the US is, and that's a sentence I never thought I'd ever be saying 10 years ago.)
hindsightbias 4y ago
The “boob tube” was common parlance back in the day, so all those olds got it then. But we during commute, work and school all day we did not have a phone in front of our face for 8 hours. I was watching a roofing crew awhile back and the number of times someone pulled their phone out was startling. That said, here is a free YC startup idea: tiktok for olds. Scrape all those old shows and build memes.
- chefandy 4y ago
  > the number of times someone pulled their phone out was startling What about it did you find startling?
  - hindsightbias 4y ago
    Roofing is dangerous enough. My crew boss would have smacked me in the head back in the day. Nail gun in one hand and phone in the other on slippery rain shield…
    - chefandy 4y ago
      Handling a nail gun while distracted is definitely unsafe. Workplace injuries in construction have fallen consistently for decades though so I can't imagine this is a new generalizable safety concern among young people.
- andirk 4y ago
  That could work but what is the main dance move on Tiktok Classic? With current Tiktok, it's that move where it looks like your elbowing people next to you on either side while lip syncing. Silent movies also didn't have actual speech so those could work. Or mute The 3 Stooges and play the voiceover of some current superhero movie. And it has to loop.
- mynameishere 4y ago
  Scrape all those old shows How did you miss this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bPwxmrNVKKE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bPwxmrNVKKE I don't know what a meme is so I can't help you there.
paganel 4y ago
> I’ve never understood the sanctimony about the need to “protect” young people from excessive screen time Supposedly a person already in his 60s or 70s already has the best parts of his life behind him, he can spend how many hours he wants in front of the TV. At the same time, a person in his 20s still has a lot of life to, well, live, it definitely seems like it is wasted if said life is spent in front of a phone screen. If it matters I'm a person in my early 40s and I spend almost no time in front of the TV (not even Netflix), although I do spend too much time in front of my computer.
gus_massa 4y ago
My father used to read the dead-tree newspapers every morning. I'm now reading them online. Is it fair to count that time as an increase of my screen time? I guess there are some similar examples, like looking for cooking recipes in a book vs online, or paper-encyclopedia vs wikipedia.
- boomchinolo78 4y ago
  Sad to break it to you, but the quality of these has decayed quite a bit.
- rrrrrrrrrrrryan 4y ago
  I do think there are a couple big differences between physical newspapers and digital news: endless scrolling feeds and algorithmic recommendations can make digital news much more addicting. Newspapers have a definite beginning and end, and they're easier to browse. Each section starts with a big, high-level snapshot of its contents, and it's easy to zoom in on the bits that interest you and disregard the rest.
  - gus_massa 4y ago
    I agree. You can't believe how many linkbait titles the digital edition has! Anyway, I'm some of the journalist have a daily column that is usualy good, and I try to stick to them (but after them, I must confess that I read some silly linkbait articles.)
- lmm 4y ago
  It's as fair as any other use of the entirely bogus concept of "screen time", yes.
- dekleinewolf 4y ago
  Obviously it counts as 'screen time', as you're using a screen. But 'screen time' is not the right statistic for each question. "Does screen time affect eyesight?" Yes, this counts as screen time. "Is this generation more/less informed about what's going on in the world?" Screen time is not the right stat, the data should be 'does this generation read news papers' and both you and your father can answer with a yes. FYI, I read a dead-tree newspaper during my breakfast. Primarily because I don't want to be staring at a screen while having food with my kids, but for some reason I'm okay with staring at a dead-tree during breakfast.
randcraw 4y ago
But "screen time" tells you nothing. Is this video games? Conversation with friends? Browsing through one-liner/tweet forums? Watching documentaries? News? Films? TV shows? Porn? Is this happening in public? While driving a car? In the presence of friends? Is this interaction purposeful, like taking an on-line course? Like learning or improving a skill? Is the viewer actively engaged or passive? Are they consumer or producer? Are they repeating mindless conspiracies or writing independent, informed, well reasoned argument? Or are they performing, recording it, and posting it online? Without a lot more context, pushing "screen time" as a sign of the impending apocalypse is just more disinfo.
- prawn 4y ago
  Reading books too. One week I was particularly aghast at my screen time measure until I realised it was counting maps and music via CarPlay when I was driving for hours a day on a remote job.
thewebcount 4y ago
While I disliked the tone of the piece, I mostly agree with the sentiment. But this (very bitter) part just made me laugh: > But please, yes, tell me again about young people and screen time and content and moral decay, and how the mobiles they’re engaging with are somehow a greater risk to their character than their own parents and their own grandparents and the family traditions they hold so dear, such as laughing in your face when you suggest shared family mealtimes around a table, a suggestion which might lead to talking to each other, listening to each other, and being present in that shared moment with each other. Tell me all about it. This sounds like something my parents would have said. We ate our meal at a table in a room without screens. Nonetheless, my spouse describes the meals I had with my family when we all lived together as “psychological warfare,” and I can’t disagree. When my parents tried to force us all to come together for anything, we laughed in their faces because we hated being together. If that’s the reaction you get from your children, look inward. And if your spouse won’t help you figure it out, then you have at least a partial answer. To this day I avoid interacting with my family as much as possible because my parents couldn’t keep the household under control. They were arbitrary with their punishments, and untrustworthy as far as confiding them with thoughts and feelings. At best nothing would be done about it. At worst, it would come back to bite you later. I didn’t want to talk to people in my family because the result was guaranteed to be extremely painful. I suspect it was the same with the author’s children and husband. It sounds like she did the right thing by getting out.
- taurath 4y ago
  You really can't fake genuine emotional engagement and secure attachment, and when those aren't there there are absolutely no way to "force" it to happen. If your child doesn't feel safe telling you about their hopes and dreams and their social lives, forcing them to sit quietly at a dinner table is not going to make those things happen, it will teach them instead to both dread time with you and also to learn how to filter everything they care about.
- standardUser 4y ago
  That's a great explanation of an experience I think many of us share. Family members insisting we spend time together out of some deference to tradition, in spite of the fact that there is a proven and undeniable hostility between these people that are being forced to spend time together. I don't particularly like doing anything just for the sake of tradition, let alone activities that cause obvious psychological stress and harm!
Tao3300 4y ago
I feel like the article started off about one thing and turned into something else. "Marital family" seems like an unusual way to describe the arrangement, predicting a degree of distance that has nothing to do with TV under the surface.
beardyw 4y ago
My wife and I are over 70. We live in the UK. It's fun to generalise, but not always helpful. No, we don't watch anything like 6 hours of TV a day. We have our evening meal, like every meal, at a table. We mostly watch one thing a day on streaming, usually well made fiction. We read news on our phones but never watch it on TV because of all the uninformed comment. Maybe we are not typical, but we do exist.
- greyhair 4y ago
  65. I went from 1975 through to 2010 not owning a TV. Not even one. In 2010 we bought a 55" HDTV (but no cable service), a BluRay player, and a Nintendo Wii. We also got a Netflix DVD subscription. We had three young kids at the time. I carved a 16 foot by 16 foot square of space out of the basement, floored with resilient foam tiles, hung the screen on the wall, added some inexpensive Ikea chairs, and the kids would jump around playing Wii games, often times with their friends over, and the whole family would share a movie on occasion. Two years later we added a Roku streaming box. Still no cable service. My wife streams something from roku, netflix or prime, while she folds laundry (she does laundry, I do most all of the cooking and dish washing). I rarely watch the screen for entertainment at all. I sit in front of a screen for work, eight or nine hours a day, for the last thirty eight years. I don't need to see more glowing pixels than that. I know my wife and I are outliers. She sees maybe four hours of TV streaming a week. I average maybe two hours a month, only because on occasion we will sit and watch a movie together.
- roland35 4y ago
  Rock on! Glad you're enjoying hacker news too :)
  - beardyw 4y ago
    Thanks. When you retire your old job is not far away.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- michaelhoney 4y ago
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
softwaredoug 4y ago
Do as I say, not as I do. Parents waste time on their phones, so the kids learn to as well. I say this as a parent that struggles to regulate my screen time and my kids. Putting it on the kids is a form of projection. It’s hard to hold our own shame and feel it. And easier to try and control others behavior. The better conversation is why do we put so much shame into screentime given the power and ubiquity of computing? The, at best, the extremely marginal causal negative effects of screentime on children’s outcomes? Why don’t we focus on things that actually impact kids outcomes like Adverse Childhood Experiences (abuse, etc)?
- prawn 4y ago
  The number of times I decline my kids' requests for screen time and then immediately return to my own laptop or phone is quite remarkable. We excuse it under the guise of work, research or organisation, but those things easily bleed into general browsing and social media.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
MaxfordAndSons 4y ago
I've been thinking about this a lot lately, having been sharing care-taking responsibilities for my mother who is in the mid-stages of dementia. For the last year or so, her usage of her phone has become increasingly problematic. She'll pick it up and stare at it blankly for minutes on end, trying to remember what she meant to do with it. She'll poke around the screen, bewildered, sure she had something she needed to do but unable to execute it, entrapped in a constant loop of frustration. And she would compulsively text our family nonsensical gibberish, with dozens of variations as she attempted to get out a well formed version of whatever she meant to say. It's also enabled multiple scammers to extract thousands of dollars from her. It was particularly striking to me, because she was never overly obsessed with her phone or technology generally, prior to the onset of her dementia. Mercifully, she's recently gotten to the point where she can't use it anymore because of dexterity issues.
that_guy_iain 4y ago
Over 60s are generally retired. With little money to do things. Many end up with mobility issues. Watching tv is free and doesn’t require moving.
willhinsa 4y ago
"Las Vegas pre-COVID" https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZTRC14TaE/ https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZTRC14TaE/ reference for anyone who doesn't want to click on a tiktok link: https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/old-people-playing-slots https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/old-people-playing-slots
datavirtue 4y ago
None of it is good for any group, and I'm not sure what the main insight is because I had to stop reading her first-draft article. Perhaps an editor could have turned this wall of drivel into something profound? We will never know.
fleddr 4y ago
The piece sounds like a petty personal revenge, where it's hard to detect any rational point. She grew up in a family abusing screen time, centering the TV above anything and anyone. That was very bad, as she readily admits. How then does it make any sense to look away when a similar or worse issue is affecting young people? Instead of preventing it from happening twice, you focus on "rubbing it in", because two wrongs make a right? Further, from a pragmatic point of view, the comparison makes zero sense. Nobody cares how much TV the elderly watch because there's little to ruin at this point. They're past their productive years, so it doesn't matter from an economical point of view. For most it won't affect their dating chances or ambition to start a family. It matters little (or at least less) for their health, as they're already in winter. For young people and society as a whole, these things matter far more. I don't know what the proper regulation (if any) would be for screen time but let's at least establish that the stakes are a 100 times higher compared to an old guy watching a stupid TV quiz. The nature of the screen time is also incomparable. Digital is far more addictive, radicalizing, privacy-invading and exploitative compared to TV.
- Terr_ 4y ago
  > it's hard to detect any rational point. Really? I think I detected at least: 1. This moral panic is either overblown or wildly inconsistent. 2. If it's impossible to imagine the same kind of government restriction being proposed for aging adults, why accept it for other groups? > Digital is far more addictive, radicalizing, privacy-invading and exploitative compared to TV. Or perhaps the unidirectional nature of TV consumption makes for powerful radicalizing propaganda--especially to an at-home group with fewer external connections to ground them--and the passivity of the consumption rots your brain and dries up critical thinking.
  - nemo44x 4y ago
    Aging adults have no potential left.
    - tapanjk 4y ago
      I assume this is snark but just in case it isn't, this is not how you should view aging adults. Potential is always limitless, only the possibility of realizing that potential reduces as one nears end of life. But then, who knows when someone's end of life is?
Aeolun 4y ago
Sounds like author self-immolated their marriage and is still salty about it?
rosywoozlechan 4y ago
> And twelve years of Tory austerity cuts mean there’s very little else for them to do, and not much they can afford to. The assumption here is that people's time is spent based on how much money the government is handing out. If you're living in a capitalist economy, can't you use the opportunity available to you to do better for yourself?
boomchinolo78 4y ago
They're in no way comparable. One is a mind in development and the other is, hopefully, a well equipped mind. The sad thing is the clarity of thought, writing and reading comprehension of the average person has deteriorated a lot. The screens give a fake sense of literacy but it's barely parroting. From the social class perspective, I find it soothing that otherwise bored people will be sucked into lives of passive consumption rather than whatever mischief they can conjure.
headsoup 4y ago
I think the only thing he skipped over was that younger people are probably spending majority time in front of youtube or fortnite etc, so of course TV is down. I think he also misses the main point. It's not that the TV is on for the periods of time, it's the ways shows manipulate and control people's attention to reinforce sitting in front of it. Perhaps we should take a closer look at advertising and dark patterns and 'click-bait' methods instead of just the time people spend, regardless of age group.
throwaway5959 4y ago
How about instead of caring about what the young or old do we mind our own fucking business?
- hungryforcodes 4y ago
  But then what would people talk about on HN? There has to be some kind of faux outrage about SOMETHING.
  - throwaway5959 4y ago
    Ain’t that the truth.
jahsome 4y ago
> I eat meals, in the life I live now, at a table. I eat them alone, because my marital family – as you can tell – imploded up their own backsides. But in many ways, I was always eating alone, even when I was in that family, perching a plastic tray on my lap while they stared at the glowing box like they’d dropped acid. Gee, wonder why no one is interested in sharing a meal or conversation with the author. Couldn't possibly be the sanctimonious disdain for your family, could it?
somishere 4y ago
Yes! Let's talk about about over-60s' screen time like we talk about young people's. Though I'd suggest "screen reliance" as a better measure than "screen time" (meaningful / active vs passive use?). Looking at my own family over the generations (sample size of 1) both screen time and reliance seem all-but incomparable, what is comparable is the sentiment around it: My grandparents, both in their mid 90s and long-retired, probably watch at least 4-6hrs of TV in a day. At least. Almost always in the evening from about 6 or 7pm until they go to bed (quite late usually). Combination of news, british crime drama, and classic films from their DVD collection. They mainly spend their days playing (a surprising amount of) golf, driving to and eating cheap lunches at various clubs where they are life members (mainly motoring and golf clubs), getting coffee and browsing at shopping centres, and visiting (and being visited by) their large and ever-expanding family. They own a smart phone but until recently only used it for receiving calls (they've just started making them too). They do use the internet sporadically via a PC, mainly to make reservations or plan trips (no email or direct communication). They were the first family on the street to get a TV and every kid on the block used to come around to watch it when my Dad was a kid. They never allowed eating dinner in front of the TV, but usually do so themselves now unless someone is visiting. Their screen time is primarily passive. They find it enjoyable, normal, and don't seem to worry about it at all. My parents and their partners, all in their 60s and working, waste time on their phones to varying degrees, including a small amount spent on social media. They all enjoy complaining about why internet technology works (or doesn't) the way it does and how much time they spend on it - they came to it later in life (duh) and are very self-ware in their usage. They also watch TV (2-3hrs, broadcast and on-demand), listen to radio, and read books, newspapers and magazines with much less complaint / awareness. Their media use encompasses their lives, but it is not all-encompassing. They take a lot of joy from a family group chat we're all part of, but to talk it's always over the phone or in person. They never allowed watching TV at dinner time, but we did watch the news together (sometimes the Simpsons!) and were one of the first houses in our small suburb to get a game machine (and a PC) in the early 90s, though usage was strictly controlled! My parents & partners will sometimes watch TV at dinner now. Their screen time is probably 50-50 passive to active. I am on a phone and laptop all day for work. I lead a fairly active/outdoorsy life outside of work (mainly on the weekend), but also watch quite a bit of on-demand, a small amount of broadcast TV, and spend a couple of hours on personal internet use per day. I was the first professional / white collar worker in my family. I would classify my screen time as significant, bordering on excessive and primarily active. My kids aren't allowed to watch TV at dinner time. They're about to enter school so still don't have too much use (or want) for a phone or the internet yet, beyond 2-3hrs on-demand streaming per week. I plan on limiting it as much as possible while I can, assuming that it will dominate their lives (while hoping that it won't). This seems to be the generationally-shared sentiment.
bartimus 4y ago
It's painful how slow we're coming to realize the concept of "how much screen time?" has been asking the wrong question. Isn't a piece of paper just another screen? Isn't a book just another screen? What about e-paper? Is playing a physical piano better than playing a virtual one using a screen? There's nothing wrong with having screen time. What matters is what type of activities people do on their screens.
- shahar2k 4y ago
  none of those except MAYBE piano actively engage with the viewr / user to keep their attention / maintain a dopamine loop in the same way as interactive devices. I say that as someone who'se worked on both films and games and there's just something about interactivity that has a huge leg up over all the other ones in retaining attention.
darepublic 4y ago
Young people are developing for the future whereas older people are not. If I am in the twilight of my life my comfort and ease of life factors more importantly because I'm on an irreversible decline. A young person on the other hand risks their future by watching too much

430 points by okasaki 4y ago

Wasting time is relative. Everyone always has some excuse for it, for why they think it’s okay to burn their brain on TV WoW TikTok whatever. Just do your thing and live your best life. Unsubscribe from what other people think.

fuzzfactor 4y ago

I think some people are just more hypnotically attracted to the action occurring in their field of vision, and moving pictures stimulate this primal response. Emotional response to artificial visual stimuli was first exaggerated for some with the arrival of silent movies, made more realistic (even when complete fantasy) with talkies and then color film. Television turned this from a designated entertainment event into an everyday occurrence in the home when it was still black & white, then color TV upped the ante, but until cable came along nobody imagined that anybody would want to have it turned on all the time. The few broadcast channels in any one market used to sign off after a certain time at night then not resume programming until the next morning. There were 13 VHF channels but no market had anywhere near that number to choose from within radio range. Then come personal style computers which were powered on all the time at the office, even if they were not that interesting people got accustomed to it, and did some of the same thing when they got more popular for the home. Laptops took the screen on the road and internet made it more interesting on a 24/7 basis, wifi broadened that and more powerful smartphones put it over the top everywhere. Each step of the way focusing on smaller-than-realistic horizons.

malfist 4y ago

The average 65 year old consumes 6 HOURS of TV a day? Jesus. No wonder they have a warped perception of politics. That little fearbox is controlling their lives.

AmericanChopper 4y ago
My grandma probably watches about that much TV, but it’s mostly quiz shows and live sports. Not sure I’d leap to the same conclusion as you here.
- glitchc 4y ago
  Your grandma watches live sports? So unusual and yet so intriguing. Which ones are her favourites?
  - Symbiote 4y ago
    My grandma would watch cricket (which is the whole 6 hours sometimes...), snooker, tennis, cycling and Formula 1. My dad would watch the cricket by seeing the TV to the Teletext page for the score, and watching it refresh every minute. (If you're young or from America, this is life watching a Web page refresh.) There is only slightly less movement than watching actual cricket.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - AmericanChopper 4y ago
    Cricket, tennis and rugby union are her favourites. But she’ll watch whatever’s on if there’s nothing better to do. She’s loving the World Cup at the moment… Edit: Incase anybody’s wondering, I don’t think Symbiote and I have the same grandma. But I don’t know for certain.
  - astura 4y ago
    My grandma absolutely loves watching (American) football.
louison11 4y ago
Sad indeed. Many people waste the last 2-3 decades of their lives on TV. I’m not entirely sure why, but an assumption is that they prob didn’t live a very sovereign life in their younger years, have grown increasingly disconnected from themselves through life, and by the time they’re older have completely lost track of what makes them come alive/is healthy.

throwaway22032 4y ago

The idea here seems to be that it's OK for people to watch hours of TV a day every day. I find it amusing that they consider TV-watching "the traditional British way". It's the traditional working class British way, sure. It's a status symbol here to _not_ have a TV, or to have a tiny one like 15" in a large room. The issue is really that doing _anything_ mindlessly is a waste of life. TV, flicky flicky lighty box things like TikTok, and World of Warcraft enable that in exactly the same way. And yeah, I played years of that shit when I was younger. A complete waste. Am I still here? Sure. Did it have some minor benefits? Sure. Would I recommend it? No, huge waste of time. There's also an enormous difference here in that older people often can't really do much else. My grandma finds it difficult to read books because her eyesight is going and lots of physical pursuits are out for obvious reasons. Cosying up in front of the TV is comfortable for a woman living out the end of her days.

HappySweeney 4y ago
While too much of anything is detrimental, I don't find watching TV to be a waste if you are enjoying yourself. Recreation is important for mental health.
- birdyrooster 4y ago
  If one is like I used to be, TV is mindless but it can be mindful. After meeting someone who changed my perception of the medium, I find that TV is one of the most engaging and challenging exercises. You are constantly searching for symbolism, inspirations and trademarks of actor/writer/director. There is so so much to do when watching TV that anyone who says it’s a waste is missing a huge opportunity!
  - standardUser 4y ago
    TV got good. It's hard to even talk about "TV" these days because we're combining artfully-crafted, thought-provoking shows like The Leftovers or The Wire with things like Big Bang Theory and Two and a Half Men. Same medium, but radically different forms of content.

patall 4y ago

I would probably prefer if my grandparents (~80) watched TV for 6h a day. Instead, they spend a similar amount of time on their smartphones, reading conspiracy blogs. And recently started to prepare for the imminent doom. Only thing worse would be an elder with dementia that is constantly shopping on amazon...

cameronh90 4y ago
To be fair, at age 80, doom is probably fairly imminent.
- WorkerBee28474 4y ago
  While the average lifespan (American stats) is about 79, if someone makes it to 80 their average lifespan is 88.
pneumic 4y ago
My 70+ parents are the same but the other way—obsessed with all things Donald Trump and getting angry about him. Hours and hours lost to a politician they despise. (edited for clarity)
- mathlover2 4y ago
  Sorry to hear that.
  - dylan604 4y ago
    It could be the opposite of what you're thinking and that they are not actually Trump fans, but getting angry about still having to deal with Trump. This describes a lot of the older folks that I know.
    - pneumic 4y ago
      Yeah, that's what I meant, wish I was clearer.

notacoward 4y ago

Not just over-60s, and not just TV screens. Yes, there are plenty of people older than I am (at 57) who spend way too much time watching TV. There are also plenty of people right around my age who spend all day listening to NPR or podcasts. Their eyes might not be elsewhere, but their brains sure are. And you know who I most often see actively using their phones while driving? Not the kids, and not the old folks either. It's the 40- and 50-somethings, the tradespeople in pickups and the suburban parents in minivans, flying down the road with their eyes glued to a screen instead where they should be. Entertainment addiction takes many forms, and the author makes a good point that the kids with their phones aren't the only ones who deserve to be taken to task for it.

tomcam 4y ago
What TV do you watch? Streamed? Broadcast? Both? What are some shows you like? I'm a senior but am stuck watching reruns of "Justified", "Life", and "Tehran".

PaulHoule 4y ago

Watch out! Over 60's vote and they can defend themselves from your finger wagging and anyone who tries to make them feel uncomfortable.

sys_64738 4y ago

Retired folk have lots of time on their hands so can watch as much TV as they want. They also don't need to be told by others how to spend their remaining years.

ortusdux 4y ago

I've been hearing more and more anecdotal stories about children blocking their parents access to Fox, OANN, etc. via parental controls and wifi routers. https://www.reddit.com/r/BestofRedditorUpdates/comments/yz7ya7/victim_of_qanon_asks_how_to_block_alt_right_news/ https://www.reddit.com/r/BestofRedditorUpdates/comments/yz7y...

prawn 4y ago
Another option to blocking is throttling speed. Make time-wasting (or worse) laborious to access and make the woodworking videos on YouTube full speed.
- jahsome 4y ago
  I have a deepseated aversion to outright censorship when it comes to my kids' media but this is somehow more palatable to me. What a pleasantly dystopian compromise!
bogwog 4y ago
That's actually a really good idea. Someone should sell a pi hole like box preconfigured to block all those aggressive/conspiratorial sites. Maybe make it discrete too, like a small box you plug into an outlet hidden behind some furniture.
mensetmanusman 4y ago
I wonder how many realize that censoring information is a human habit as old as time?

gspencley 4y ago

My children are adults now, but when they were growing up we wanted them to pursue productive creative endeavours so that they could learn life skills and figure out what they want to do with their lives. Our goal was to help them achieve self-sufficiency so that they could move out and feed themselves. I'm not 65 yet, but once I am I hope that others will recognize my productive achievements and will leave me the hell alone to do whatever I want to with the rest of my limited time here on earth. If that means sitting on my ass doing nothing - that's my choice and my right. It's not hypocrisy. A child and a retiree are not even remotely comparable. One is accountable to their parents, the other has likely worked their ass off for decades to earn a bit of down time.

yamazakiwi 4y ago
I do agree that they are difficult to compare directly as the scenarios are quite different. I can also say that your attitude towards raising children is the minority, most parents will let a tv or tablet babysit for them unfortunately.
jonny_eh 4y ago
- DougN7 4y ago
  I don’t understand where this sentiment comes from. Don’t vote?? It’s not like being tired is being dead. The status of the world/country/society still impacts older people too.
  - chrsig 4y ago
    [flagged]
    - Karunamon 4y ago
      Replace "boomers" with any other demographic group if you wish to understand why this is an ugly statement to be making. Hint: it isn't because "boomers" are more vulnerable to misinformation

bell-cot 4y ago

I'm interested in how the over-60s' TV time is being measured. Why - I know a number of older folks who live alone, and claim that they leave the TV on all day - not to watch it, but as a source of "color noise", giving them a comforting illusion of not being at home all alone.

yamazakiwi 4y ago
That's a good point, I also do this as it brings some amount of comfort vs being alone with complete silence.
NoraCodes 4y ago
This is a great point! I think a lot of people, myself included, do the same thing with YouTube videos or even long Netflix shows; it's playing, I'm half-listening to it, but I'm also accomplishing some annoying or semi-mechanical task. If you asked how much video content I consume, you might be shocked at the answer, but I wonder if we should count that as "wasting time".
Mountain_Skies 4y ago
During my childhood, my mother would do that with The Weather Channel. It was, at least at the time, devoid of anything political, and no sex or violence, though the coverage of severe weather could be a bit anxiety inducing. But even running in the background, I'm sure we still absorbed the messaging of commercials to some extent. It's not quite the same thing as actively watching but probably still imparts some degree of impact.

FPGAhacker 4y ago

I haven’t hit my sixties yet, but it won’t be long now. Youth is ignorance, and the only cure is getting older. When that happens you will marvel at how much you thought you knew and understood. You will listen or read the next generation making preposterous proclamations about older people and the older generations. Laughable in their certainty. Judging older people and finding them unworthy. Especially family. You may try to convey to the younger generation how you were just like them once, trying to shortcut the wisdom of age for them. But there are no shortcuts. There is no easy way. So we can watch and reflect, those older than us probably have the same thoughts about us. Those ignorant 60 year olds think they know everything. Wait till they hit 90.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
tomcam 4y ago
Yeah I'm in my 60s and... not too impressed by the supposed wisdom of my fellow Boomers.
this_is_for_you 4y ago
There is wisdom is what you are saying, as I have seen it myself over the years from my younger days to my current age. But there is something that needs to be said, so badly, that I made this account despite swearing off HN commenting for good; or so I thought. (Sorry Dang if this breaks a rule, but this comment really needs to be made.) Here it is: Age in and of itself, does not equal wisdom. One can be wise through long life, yes; but experience is why. If one does not live an experienced life, they will still be just as unwise and potentially as dumb as those who are younger than them. Likewise, someone who has lived a rich and fulfilling life no matter how those events play out, can be just as wise if not wiser than those older than them. So while youth can be ignorance, so too can the egotism of age. This will continue to be a problem in society until the day when everyone can come to agree that our lives are not equal, and never will be; because we cannot experience everything the same way across the world. It is that diversity in experience which is why it is so important that we learn to listen to each other, even if we don't like what they have to say. To expect obedience from anyone due to age alone is just a form of authoritarianism which has no right to exist; especially when the evidence shows abundantly that the older generations didn't get everything right either. Just like how no one in their right mind expects the younger to get everything right as well. It is only the daft and delusional that think they have gotten everything right. And from the looks of things out there in society, we have much more of that going on, than we have any wisdom being shared. As a final word. If you found this wise, consider this. I'm turning 34 soon. And with that said, this is the last any of you will hear from me. This is all I have to say.

JoeAltmaier 4y ago

Really? We conflate the time spend by retired people with the activities of the young and supposedly productive?

PartiallyTyped 4y ago
Yes, because the consequences matter. Retired people have significantly more time, and thus have significantly higher capacity to vote and influence society even though they will not experience the long term consequences of said influence. You ought to be worried about who whispers what from sunrise to sundown. On the other hand, we should be very vigilant on the kind of experiences kids get to have as those indirectly influence the future of society.
- onecommentman 4y ago
  who whispers what…and why A healthy habit that senior executives learn is to ask the question “why are you telling me this (particular fact, among all the facts there are to tell)?” BTW, retired folks don’t have a greater capacity to vote, as compared to all voting age qualified voters. Mobility issues in fact make it harder. Also, depending on the definition of “long-term”, it is definitely true that the elderly will experience the consequences of their actions or, conversely, no one currently living will. Why did you tell me this? :-)
  - skissane 4y ago
    > BTW, retired folks don’t have a greater capacity to vote, as compared to all voting age qualified voters. Mobility issues in fact make it harder. I think a lot of it is simply that many younger people are too busy to vote, or have too many appealing alternatives, or just don't get around to it; retired people have much more time on their hands, so they are more likely to do it. A good way of levelling that playing field is what we have here in Australia – compulsory voting. If you are eligible to vote and don't, the government will send you a letter asking for an excuse, and if they don't think that excuse is good enough (you can appeal their rejection of your excuse to court), they'll fine you (for federal elections it is only AU$20, although if you don't pay that on time, they add another zero on the end). Added to that, voting is always on Saturday, a day which the majority of people have off work – and those who have to work that day (or are observant Jewish/etc), can go to an early voting centre before then, or cast a postal vote. Young people are much more likely to vote when you force them to.

TedDoesntTalk 4y ago

There seems to be no distinction between TV and gaming. It’s all just “screen time.” But the distinction is VERY important. One can be addictive.

ChoGGi 4y ago
Both can be addictive.

noasaservice 4y ago

I'm one who did just that - my mom fell into the trap of qanon, trumper, cultist, and worse bullshit. And every time I went over there, she had that idiot box on, blaring foxnews propaganda. I caught her more than a few times down a real rendition of 2 minute hate from Orwell's 1984. So, I turned on the child filters on her tv and removed foxnews, oann, and a few more. Is it ethical? Well, it's gray for sure. But given how unhinged she was getting, sure, I'll take that hit.

ryandrake 4y ago
> I caught her more than a few times down a real rendition of 2 minute hate from Orwell's 1984. This is one thing I acutely remember about my grand-dad sitting there watching endless conservative news on the TV: The red-faced build-up and then vocal rage. These shows just hook onto elderly people's emotions and gradually whirl them around in a frenzy until they are visibly upset at "all these horrible things the 'liberals' are doing". He would finally turn off the TV absolutely disgusted at all these imagined problems and conservative fever dreams, thinking he was watching actual news. Pretty sad, and really nothing you can do about it unless you physically intervened and started blocking antenna signals.
onecommentman 4y ago
Only did that once for my Mom. She was visiting, and 9/11 happened. Everyone was basically stuck in the house for a few days. Fox coverage was pretty bad for that event, and there was a lot of other better coverage, so I removed Fox from the channels that would show up on the remote. But that was an event-driven sort of thing of direct local significance… If she had invested in FTX and could have been mislead into more bad investments, I might try to have certain puff pieces about Alameda and SBF in Fortune, NYT, WSJ just…disappear.

httpz 4y ago

30 years later, millennials will be on their smartphones while complaining kids these days never come out of their VR world.

speakfreely 4y ago
Nice try, zuck. In all seriousness, I suspect this is probably correct. I imagine things will be very VR-oriented and Zuckerberg is actually on the right track, just way too early.
- over_bridge 4y ago
  Maybe he should have targeted the elderly from the start. People who can't leave the house easily might get more out of the experience. It seems inane to me having a metaverse which is just the real world with bad graphics but without my health and mobility it could be a different story. Maybe market from old on down with this product
- CameronNemo 4y ago
  just way too early That is far from Meta's only problem. They are well known as a manipulative corporation with little accountability for their actions or care for their users.
  - jahsome 4y ago
    That only means they're likely to become even more dominant, thus proving parent's point.
Mountain_Skies 4y ago
That someday EDM will be considered music for the elderly is endlessly amusing.
- reducesuffering 4y ago
  Nick Swardson bit on that: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z7IlUIi-idA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z7IlUIi-idA

tomcam 4y ago

> Meanwhile, those aged 65 and over spend just under six hours on average watching TV daily. Wait people are still watching broadcast TV? I guess if you're a pensioner in the UK who doesn't have to pay the license it makes sense. Though 6 hours, even of the Beeb, seems a bit nightmarish.

jahsome 4y ago
In the US, that's like 2.5+ hours of ads. I just can't understand how these people don't lose their ever loving mind every 7 minutes. In the rare occasion I'm in a hotel or something I almost always turn the TV on out of sheer boredom and find myself absolutely blown away by how obnoxious and prevalent commercials are. Same for terrestrial radio.
- tomcam 4y ago
  My experience exactly

UncleEntity 4y ago

When I was a kid they were similar concerns about kids spending too much time in front of the TV… And in the 90s about kids spending too much time in front of the Xboxen. Have to ask my parents what they were worried about in the 50s, probably too much time reading books.

ianmcgowan 4y ago
Listening to too much degenerate Rock and Roll on the radio.
wetmore 4y ago
Just because similar concerns existed does not make them invalid. I was a 2000s kid who spent far too much time playing videogames and on the computer. If I could give my past self advice against doing so, I would in a heartbeat.

sibeliuss 4y ago

As if TV was even remotely related to spending all day scrolling through social media. There's no comparison between the two.

Mountain_Skies 4y ago
True, tv doesn't alter its content on the fly minute-by-minute, using an algorithm tuned to your own personal emotional triggers.

googlryas 4y ago

I feel sorry for this lady. Sounds like she had a very boring home life centered around the TV. But that doesn't mean the screen time panic is necessarily wrong, though it is reductive in the sense that it treats all screen time as equal. Chatting with friends is the same as watching cat videos is the same as using MITs OCW is the same as watching porn is the same as popping virtual bubble wrap is the same as reading War and Peace on the kindle app. Likewise, some TV programming can be thoughtful and inspiring and other tv programming can be bland and mind numbing.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

tomcam 4y ago

I love kids being addicted to screens. Bored teenagers are less likely to incite trouble on trains, waiting in line, etc. when they can just be rocking out or Snapchatting.

seydor 4y ago
Until rioting becomes a meme

NaturalPhallacy 4y ago

This is fair. My boomer dad is almost never not watching TV...

dredmorbius 4y ago

We did. And by "we", I mean Newton Minnow, former chair of the Federal Communications Commission, and Jerry Mander, advertising executive. Minnow's commentary came in what came to be known as his "Vast Wasteland" speech. <https://vimeo.com/55481067 https://vimeo.com/55481067> You can find a contemporaneous interview of Minnow by Studs Terkel here: https://studsterkel.wfmt.com/programs/newton-minow-discusses-broadcasting https://studsterkel.wfmt.com/programs/newton-minow-discusses... And a recent (2021) take here: <https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2021-05-06/newton-minow-tv-vast-wasteland https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2021-05-06/newton-min...> Audio (MP3): Mander's argument was the book Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television, which is just what it says: four arguments, and not for limitation, change, or curtailment, but elimination of television. Those arguments being that television: - removes the sense of reality from people - promotes capitalism - can be used as a scapegoat, and that - all three of these issues negatively work together (Via Wikipedia) Wikipedia: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Arguments_for_the_Elimination_of_Television https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Arguments_for_the_Elimina...> Internet Archive: <https://archive.org/details/fourargumentsfor00mand_0 https://archive.org/details/fourargumentsfor00mand_0> LibGen: <http://libgen.rs/book/index.php?md5=448E80906BCD92C0AA02235E5E964F9A http://libgen.rs/book/index.php?md5=448E80906BCD92C0AA02235E...> And they were far from the first or only ones. Vance Packard published The Hidden Persuaders on the power of advertising in 1957 (<https://archive.org/details/vance-packard-the-hidden-persuaders-1957 https://archive.org/details/vance-packard-the-hidden-persuad...>). The Frankfurt School looked at (amongst many other things) the role of mass media on culture and politics. There's Dwight MacDonald's classic essay "A Theory of Mass Culture" (1953) <https://is.muni.cz/el/1421/jaro2008/ESB032/um/5136660/MacDonald_-_A_Theory_of_Mass_Culture.pdf https://is.muni.cz/el/1421/jaro2008/ESB032/um/5136660/MacDon...> Noam Chomsky, Neil Postman, Edward Herman, Robert W. McChesney, and numerous others. For what it's worth, I had the luck to grow up in a household without television for many years, and afterwards, only very limited access. The Tube largely repells me now, though other screens do, I confess, have their allure.

dredmorbius 4y ago
NB, above was a slightly kneejerk response on my part to misreading "over-60s" as somehow referring to the 1960s. That said, awareness of television as a generally harmful medium has in fact been recognised for quite some time. Along with other mass media. And yes, older adults seem to have their own specific susceptibilities. Kara Swisher speaks and writes fairly frequently over her own issues with her own mother's television viewing and its impact upon her mother's politics and general (mis)understanding of the world.

hn_throwaway_99 4y ago

Such an odd take in my opinion. Just because there isn't a comparative level of concern for older people's excessive screen time doesn't mean we shouldn't be concerned about younger people's. Highest suicide rates have traditionally been among the elderly. Is it then a "moral panic" if we are concerned about rising suicide rates in teenagers?

girvo 4y ago
Possibly, it would depend on how the discussion is framed. “Won’t somebody think of the children” should always be looked at critically, because far too often it has nothing to do with the harms those kids face at all — which the article brings up at the end.
skissane 4y ago
> Highest suicide rates have traditionally been among the elderly. Is it then a "moral panic" if we are concerned about rising suicide rates in teenagers? I agree with you. Another way of making the same point: The negative impact on those left-behind is much higher for a 15 year old who commits suicide than for an 85 year old. The 15 year old's parents may well spend decades grieving their loss; the 85 year old's parents will be long dead. Given that, I don't think it is unreasonable for society to focus the bulk of its attention and resources on youth suicide rather than elderly suicide.

thenerdhead 4y ago

What if we just talked about moderation in all things and kept to ourselves?

nonrandomstring 4y ago

The question is not now much time you spend at a screen, but who is on the other side of it. Much of the conversation so far concerns time, and the virtues or vices of how we spend it. Not all pastimes are equal. Knitting a jumper, taking a hike, or skateboarding are actions one performs on or in the world. Reading a book is more of an action that the world (the author especially) performs upon you. It is a different frame. Movies and video gaming are somewhere in the middle. Some media forms, such as daytime trash-TV and TiKTok are at the extreme of the passive/receptive frame. It is a pipeline of affect directly to your hypothalamus. Any discussion of harms or benefits must be understood in that light.

DougN7 4y ago
I’ve been pondering a bit in this area, especially around things that are addictive harmful. It seems like things that give a pleasure reward for little or no work, and aren’t furthering relationships, are dangerous. They sap motivations (no need to work hard when your feel-good choice is so close). This seems to cover social media/doom-scrolling, porn, drugs and alcohol (at various levels and circumstances), easy hookups(?), constant TV, etc. Still working on the idea…
- jstarfish 4y ago
  These aren't all inherently bad things when consumed in moderation, and over the course of a lifetime. Sometimes we just need those quick hits of artificially-induced dopamine to give us the drive to push through the responsibilities and pressures of adult life. The problem isn't that the content is itself dangerous, it's that it's being mainlined by [adults and children alike]. Absolutely nothing in life is safe to consume this way-- the sort of drugs that otherwise provide these effects are classified as class-II controlled substances.
- ted_bunny 4y ago
  Ponder this modern classic, something I throw at everyone who will listen: https://www.stuartmcmillen.com/comic/supernormal-stimuli/ https://www.stuartmcmillen.com/comic/supernormal-stimuli/
4y ago

nottorp 4y ago

I've always wondered how someone can talk about the perils of mobile phones and then binge watch lousy TV series.

spoonjim 4y ago

This doesn’t make any sense. Forgive me for being crude but for the vast majority of over 65’s… it just doesn’t matter what they do with their time. They’re waiting around to die. Children will grow up to build the future so what they do or don’t do matters a lot.

bell-cot 4y ago
Not to endorse this attitude about my end of the population pyramid - but it does raise an interesting point about how TV screen time was measured for the older folks. In long-term care facilities, hospitals, doctors' offices, etc. - where the TV's are just left turned on all day, "turn it off" isn't an option, and a fair number of the older folks may have failing hearing / eyesight / cognition (so they might have a hard time following the content on the TV, even if they wanted to) - was that "screen time" added into the numbers?

mathlover2 4y ago

Why is it that every time I read an article about modern British politics and culture, I walk away almost feeling happier about the state of the US? It's almost like God, while planning the course of current events, looked at the inhabitants of the US recovering from 4 years of Trumpian misrule and decided to console them by having the original English-speaking developed country end up even worse off than they were. (I'm kidding, of course. God doesn't actually exist, and I know there's a lot of places way worse off than the US or the UK. I'm also not actually this American-centric in my views. My point is that the UK somehow seems worse off these days than the US is, and that's a sentence I never thought I'd ever be saying 10 years ago.)

hindsightbias 4y ago

The “boob tube” was common parlance back in the day, so all those olds got it then. But we during commute, work and school all day we did not have a phone in front of our face for 8 hours. I was watching a roofing crew awhile back and the number of times someone pulled their phone out was startling. That said, here is a free YC startup idea: tiktok for olds. Scrape all those old shows and build memes.

chefandy 4y ago
> the number of times someone pulled their phone out was startling What about it did you find startling?
- hindsightbias 4y ago
  Roofing is dangerous enough. My crew boss would have smacked me in the head back in the day. Nail gun in one hand and phone in the other on slippery rain shield…
  - chefandy 4y ago
    Handling a nail gun while distracted is definitely unsafe. Workplace injuries in construction have fallen consistently for decades though so I can't imagine this is a new generalizable safety concern among young people.
andirk 4y ago
That could work but what is the main dance move on Tiktok Classic? With current Tiktok, it's that move where it looks like your elbowing people next to you on either side while lip syncing. Silent movies also didn't have actual speech so those could work. Or mute The 3 Stooges and play the voiceover of some current superhero movie. And it has to loop.
mynameishere 4y ago
Scrape all those old shows How did you miss this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bPwxmrNVKKE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bPwxmrNVKKE I don't know what a meme is so I can't help you there.

paganel 4y ago

> I’ve never understood the sanctimony about the need to “protect” young people from excessive screen time Supposedly a person already in his 60s or 70s already has the best parts of his life behind him, he can spend how many hours he wants in front of the TV. At the same time, a person in his 20s still has a lot of life to, well, live, it definitely seems like it is wasted if said life is spent in front of a phone screen. If it matters I'm a person in my early 40s and I spend almost no time in front of the TV (not even Netflix), although I do spend too much time in front of my computer.

gus_massa 4y ago

My father used to read the dead-tree newspapers every morning. I'm now reading them online. Is it fair to count that time as an increase of my screen time? I guess there are some similar examples, like looking for cooking recipes in a book vs online, or paper-encyclopedia vs wikipedia.

boomchinolo78 4y ago
Sad to break it to you, but the quality of these has decayed quite a bit.
rrrrrrrrrrrryan 4y ago
I do think there are a couple big differences between physical newspapers and digital news: endless scrolling feeds and algorithmic recommendations can make digital news much more addicting. Newspapers have a definite beginning and end, and they're easier to browse. Each section starts with a big, high-level snapshot of its contents, and it's easy to zoom in on the bits that interest you and disregard the rest.
- gus_massa 4y ago
  I agree. You can't believe how many linkbait titles the digital edition has! Anyway, I'm some of the journalist have a daily column that is usualy good, and I try to stick to them (but after them, I must confess that I read some silly linkbait articles.)
lmm 4y ago
It's as fair as any other use of the entirely bogus concept of "screen time", yes.
dekleinewolf 4y ago
Obviously it counts as 'screen time', as you're using a screen. But 'screen time' is not the right statistic for each question. "Does screen time affect eyesight?" Yes, this counts as screen time. "Is this generation more/less informed about what's going on in the world?" Screen time is not the right stat, the data should be 'does this generation read news papers' and both you and your father can answer with a yes. FYI, I read a dead-tree newspaper during my breakfast. Primarily because I don't want to be staring at a screen while having food with my kids, but for some reason I'm okay with staring at a dead-tree during breakfast.

randcraw 4y ago

But "screen time" tells you nothing. Is this video games? Conversation with friends? Browsing through one-liner/tweet forums? Watching documentaries? News? Films? TV shows? Porn? Is this happening in public? While driving a car? In the presence of friends? Is this interaction purposeful, like taking an on-line course? Like learning or improving a skill? Is the viewer actively engaged or passive? Are they consumer or producer? Are they repeating mindless conspiracies or writing independent, informed, well reasoned argument? Or are they performing, recording it, and posting it online? Without a lot more context, pushing "screen time" as a sign of the impending apocalypse is just more disinfo.

prawn 4y ago
Reading books too. One week I was particularly aghast at my screen time measure until I realised it was counting maps and music via CarPlay when I was driving for hours a day on a remote job.

thewebcount 4y ago

While I disliked the tone of the piece, I mostly agree with the sentiment. But this (very bitter) part just made me laugh: > But please, yes, tell me again about young people and screen time and content and moral decay, and how the mobiles they’re engaging with are somehow a greater risk to their character than their own parents and their own grandparents and the family traditions they hold so dear, such as laughing in your face when you suggest shared family mealtimes around a table, a suggestion which might lead to talking to each other, listening to each other, and being present in that shared moment with each other. Tell me all about it. This sounds like something my parents would have said. We ate our meal at a table in a room without screens. Nonetheless, my spouse describes the meals I had with my family when we all lived together as “psychological warfare,” and I can’t disagree. When my parents tried to force us all to come together for anything, we laughed in their faces because we hated being together. If that’s the reaction you get from your children, look inward. And if your spouse won’t help you figure it out, then you have at least a partial answer. To this day I avoid interacting with my family as much as possible because my parents couldn’t keep the household under control. They were arbitrary with their punishments, and untrustworthy as far as confiding them with thoughts and feelings. At best nothing would be done about it. At worst, it would come back to bite you later. I didn’t want to talk to people in my family because the result was guaranteed to be extremely painful. I suspect it was the same with the author’s children and husband. It sounds like she did the right thing by getting out.

taurath 4y ago
You really can't fake genuine emotional engagement and secure attachment, and when those aren't there there are absolutely no way to "force" it to happen. If your child doesn't feel safe telling you about their hopes and dreams and their social lives, forcing them to sit quietly at a dinner table is not going to make those things happen, it will teach them instead to both dread time with you and also to learn how to filter everything they care about.
standardUser 4y ago
That's a great explanation of an experience I think many of us share. Family members insisting we spend time together out of some deference to tradition, in spite of the fact that there is a proven and undeniable hostility between these people that are being forced to spend time together. I don't particularly like doing anything just for the sake of tradition, let alone activities that cause obvious psychological stress and harm!

Tao3300 4y ago

I feel like the article started off about one thing and turned into something else. "Marital family" seems like an unusual way to describe the arrangement, predicting a degree of distance that has nothing to do with TV under the surface.

beardyw 4y ago

My wife and I are over 70. We live in the UK. It's fun to generalise, but not always helpful. No, we don't watch anything like 6 hours of TV a day. We have our evening meal, like every meal, at a table. We mostly watch one thing a day on streaming, usually well made fiction. We read news on our phones but never watch it on TV because of all the uninformed comment. Maybe we are not typical, but we do exist.

greyhair 4y ago
65. I went from 1975 through to 2010 not owning a TV. Not even one. In 2010 we bought a 55" HDTV (but no cable service), a BluRay player, and a Nintendo Wii. We also got a Netflix DVD subscription. We had three young kids at the time. I carved a 16 foot by 16 foot square of space out of the basement, floored with resilient foam tiles, hung the screen on the wall, added some inexpensive Ikea chairs, and the kids would jump around playing Wii games, often times with their friends over, and the whole family would share a movie on occasion. Two years later we added a Roku streaming box. Still no cable service. My wife streams something from roku, netflix or prime, while she folds laundry (she does laundry, I do most all of the cooking and dish washing). I rarely watch the screen for entertainment at all. I sit in front of a screen for work, eight or nine hours a day, for the last thirty eight years. I don't need to see more glowing pixels than that. I know my wife and I are outliers. She sees maybe four hours of TV streaming a week. I average maybe two hours a month, only because on occasion we will sit and watch a movie together.
roland35 4y ago
Rock on! Glad you're enjoying hacker news too :)
- beardyw 4y ago
  Thanks. When you retire your old job is not far away.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
michaelhoney 4y ago

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

softwaredoug 4y ago

Do as I say, not as I do. Parents waste time on their phones, so the kids learn to as well. I say this as a parent that struggles to regulate my screen time and my kids. Putting it on the kids is a form of projection. It’s hard to hold our own shame and feel it. And easier to try and control others behavior. The better conversation is why do we put so much shame into screentime given the power and ubiquity of computing? The, at best, the extremely marginal causal negative effects of screentime on children’s outcomes? Why don’t we focus on things that actually impact kids outcomes like Adverse Childhood Experiences (abuse, etc)?

prawn 4y ago
The number of times I decline my kids' requests for screen time and then immediately return to my own laptop or phone is quite remarkable. We excuse it under the guise of work, research or organisation, but those things easily bleed into general browsing and social media.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

MaxfordAndSons 4y ago

I've been thinking about this a lot lately, having been sharing care-taking responsibilities for my mother who is in the mid-stages of dementia. For the last year or so, her usage of her phone has become increasingly problematic. She'll pick it up and stare at it blankly for minutes on end, trying to remember what she meant to do with it. She'll poke around the screen, bewildered, sure she had something she needed to do but unable to execute it, entrapped in a constant loop of frustration. And she would compulsively text our family nonsensical gibberish, with dozens of variations as she attempted to get out a well formed version of whatever she meant to say. It's also enabled multiple scammers to extract thousands of dollars from her. It was particularly striking to me, because she was never overly obsessed with her phone or technology generally, prior to the onset of her dementia. Mercifully, she's recently gotten to the point where she can't use it anymore because of dexterity issues.

that_guy_iain 4y ago

Over 60s are generally retired. With little money to do things. Many end up with mobility issues. Watching tv is free and doesn’t require moving.

willhinsa 4y ago

"Las Vegas pre-COVID" https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZTRC14TaE/ https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZTRC14TaE/ reference for anyone who doesn't want to click on a tiktok link: https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/old-people-playing-slots https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/old-people-playing-slots

datavirtue 4y ago

None of it is good for any group, and I'm not sure what the main insight is because I had to stop reading her first-draft article. Perhaps an editor could have turned this wall of drivel into something profound? We will never know.

fleddr 4y ago

The piece sounds like a petty personal revenge, where it's hard to detect any rational point. She grew up in a family abusing screen time, centering the TV above anything and anyone. That was very bad, as she readily admits. How then does it make any sense to look away when a similar or worse issue is affecting young people? Instead of preventing it from happening twice, you focus on "rubbing it in", because two wrongs make a right? Further, from a pragmatic point of view, the comparison makes zero sense. Nobody cares how much TV the elderly watch because there's little to ruin at this point. They're past their productive years, so it doesn't matter from an economical point of view. For most it won't affect their dating chances or ambition to start a family. It matters little (or at least less) for their health, as they're already in winter. For young people and society as a whole, these things matter far more. I don't know what the proper regulation (if any) would be for screen time but let's at least establish that the stakes are a 100 times higher compared to an old guy watching a stupid TV quiz. The nature of the screen time is also incomparable. Digital is far more addictive, radicalizing, privacy-invading and exploitative compared to TV.

Terr_ 4y ago
> it's hard to detect any rational point. Really? I think I detected at least: 1. This moral panic is either overblown or wildly inconsistent. 2. If it's impossible to imagine the same kind of government restriction being proposed for aging adults, why accept it for other groups? > Digital is far more addictive, radicalizing, privacy-invading and exploitative compared to TV. Or perhaps the unidirectional nature of TV consumption makes for powerful radicalizing propaganda--especially to an at-home group with fewer external connections to ground them--and the passivity of the consumption rots your brain and dries up critical thinking.
- nemo44x 4y ago
  Aging adults have no potential left.
  - tapanjk 4y ago
    I assume this is snark but just in case it isn't, this is not how you should view aging adults. Potential is always limitless, only the possibility of realizing that potential reduces as one nears end of life. But then, who knows when someone's end of life is?

Aeolun 4y ago

Sounds like author self-immolated their marriage and is still salty about it?

rosywoozlechan 4y ago

> And twelve years of Tory austerity cuts mean there’s very little else for them to do, and not much they can afford to. The assumption here is that people's time is spent based on how much money the government is handing out. If you're living in a capitalist economy, can't you use the opportunity available to you to do better for yourself?

boomchinolo78 4y ago

They're in no way comparable. One is a mind in development and the other is, hopefully, a well equipped mind. The sad thing is the clarity of thought, writing and reading comprehension of the average person has deteriorated a lot. The screens give a fake sense of literacy but it's barely parroting. From the social class perspective, I find it soothing that otherwise bored people will be sucked into lives of passive consumption rather than whatever mischief they can conjure.

headsoup 4y ago

I think the only thing he skipped over was that younger people are probably spending majority time in front of youtube or fortnite etc, so of course TV is down. I think he also misses the main point. It's not that the TV is on for the periods of time, it's the ways shows manipulate and control people's attention to reinforce sitting in front of it. Perhaps we should take a closer look at advertising and dark patterns and 'click-bait' methods instead of just the time people spend, regardless of age group.

throwaway5959 4y ago

How about instead of caring about what the young or old do we mind our own fucking business?

hungryforcodes 4y ago
But then what would people talk about on HN? There has to be some kind of faux outrage about SOMETHING.
- throwaway5959 4y ago
  Ain’t that the truth.

jahsome 4y ago

> I eat meals, in the life I live now, at a table. I eat them alone, because my marital family – as you can tell – imploded up their own backsides. But in many ways, I was always eating alone, even when I was in that family, perching a plastic tray on my lap while they stared at the glowing box like they’d dropped acid. Gee, wonder why no one is interested in sharing a meal or conversation with the author. Couldn't possibly be the sanctimonious disdain for your family, could it?

somishere 4y ago

Yes! Let's talk about about over-60s' screen time like we talk about young people's. Though I'd suggest "screen reliance" as a better measure than "screen time" (meaningful / active vs passive use?). Looking at my own family over the generations (sample size of 1) both screen time and reliance seem all-but incomparable, what is comparable is the sentiment around it: My grandparents, both in their mid 90s and long-retired, probably watch at least 4-6hrs of TV in a day. At least. Almost always in the evening from about 6 or 7pm until they go to bed (quite late usually). Combination of news, british crime drama, and classic films from their DVD collection. They mainly spend their days playing (a surprising amount of) golf, driving to and eating cheap lunches at various clubs where they are life members (mainly motoring and golf clubs), getting coffee and browsing at shopping centres, and visiting (and being visited by) their large and ever-expanding family. They own a smart phone but until recently only used it for receiving calls (they've just started making them too). They do use the internet sporadically via a PC, mainly to make reservations or plan trips (no email or direct communication). They were the first family on the street to get a TV and every kid on the block used to come around to watch it when my Dad was a kid. They never allowed eating dinner in front of the TV, but usually do so themselves now unless someone is visiting. Their screen time is primarily passive. They find it enjoyable, normal, and don't seem to worry about it at all. My parents and their partners, all in their 60s and working, waste time on their phones to varying degrees, including a small amount spent on social media. They all enjoy complaining about why internet technology works (or doesn't) the way it does and how much time they spend on it - they came to it later in life (duh) and are very self-ware in their usage. They also watch TV (2-3hrs, broadcast and on-demand), listen to radio, and read books, newspapers and magazines with much less complaint / awareness. Their media use encompasses their lives, but it is not all-encompassing. They take a lot of joy from a family group chat we're all part of, but to talk it's always over the phone or in person. They never allowed watching TV at dinner time, but we did watch the news together (sometimes the Simpsons!) and were one of the first houses in our small suburb to get a game machine (and a PC) in the early 90s, though usage was strictly controlled! My parents & partners will sometimes watch TV at dinner now. Their screen time is probably 50-50 passive to active. I am on a phone and laptop all day for work. I lead a fairly active/outdoorsy life outside of work (mainly on the weekend), but also watch quite a bit of on-demand, a small amount of broadcast TV, and spend a couple of hours on personal internet use per day. I was the first professional / white collar worker in my family. I would classify my screen time as significant, bordering on excessive and primarily active. My kids aren't allowed to watch TV at dinner time. They're about to enter school so still don't have too much use (or want) for a phone or the internet yet, beyond 2-3hrs on-demand streaming per week. I plan on limiting it as much as possible while I can, assuming that it will dominate their lives (while hoping that it won't). This seems to be the generationally-shared sentiment.

bartimus 4y ago

It's painful how slow we're coming to realize the concept of "how much screen time?" has been asking the wrong question. Isn't a piece of paper just another screen? Isn't a book just another screen? What about e-paper? Is playing a physical piano better than playing a virtual one using a screen? There's nothing wrong with having screen time. What matters is what type of activities people do on their screens.

shahar2k 4y ago
none of those except MAYBE piano actively engage with the viewr / user to keep their attention / maintain a dopamine loop in the same way as interactive devices. I say that as someone who'se worked on both films and games and there's just something about interactivity that has a huge leg up over all the other ones in retaining attention.

darepublic 4y ago

Young people are developing for the future whereas older people are not. If I am in the twilight of my life my comfort and ease of life factors more importantly because I'm on an irreversible decline. A young person on the other hand risks their future by watching too much