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Only recently, like in the last year, have I found my phone just sucking me in. I am mindlessly browsing whatever (TikTok, Xiao Hong Shu, Reddit) and then sudde

Only recently, like in the last year, have I found my phone just sucking me in. I am mindlessly browsing whatever (TikTok, Xiao Hong Shu, Reddit) and then suddenly my time has slipped away. The thing is, I'm not young by any means. I figured I was aged out of the risk that the phone could devour my time but I was so mistaken in thinking that way. Compared to how I felt my time went and was spent when I was younger (pre-internet days) this feels awful and draining and so damn easy to slip into. Feels like life is on pause yet time is still slipping away as fast as ever.

NoMoreNicksLeft 1y ago
My phone is decent enough to read books... the large iPhone is not so far different in size than the paperbacks I used to enjoy reading when I was younger. And, in a pinch, I can use it for important things. To send a message to someone I care to communicate with or to look up something urgently, or maybe the maps app if I need to go somewhere. But for all other purposes it is worthless to me. 6 months ago I was debugging my furnace and I had a Youtube video to help with that... and it's just unwatchable on the tiny screen. I found myself going back to my desk to watch it on the big screen. Though, even on that, Youube is very unappealing unless I'm looking for something specific. On the computer monitor(s), I could lose the entire day here on HN or (less often now days) reddit. I still can't understand the appeal of gluing my eyeballs to a phone screen.
bityard 1y ago
Doom-scrolling and short-form videos seem to not discriminate by age. I know lots of middle-aged to elderly people who can sit on their phones and scroll for hours on end every day.
- switchbak 1y ago
  My boomer relatives seem especially susceptible to this. As our local community ties atrophy, I find many old folks with less social contact tend to turn to social media to compensate. I also wonder if the aging brain is particularly vulnerable to some of the darker patterns these platforms employ? It certainly seems like it from the small number of data points I've seen.
  - unfitted2545 1y ago
    yep. in my parents case, it might be that they've always thought I was the young, addicted zoomer, and it could never happen to them. it happened to them and now there's no self awareness.
  - smileysteve 1y ago
    Distractions aren't new; but they are more 24/7 24 hour "news" is a great example; we leave it on in the background, as Radio or TV, but we're not listening to gain information, we're listening to be entertained - amygdala activated. With AM radio and broadcast TV, low efforts were mostly limited to 2 hour segments from the 80s-90s; then in the late 90s, cable tv became standard, then in the 2000s the internet (chats, reddit, hacker news), and then the smartphone...
  - gaoshan 1y ago
    I can tell you that for me (early Gen X) it got bad when my wife was out of town for an extended period of weeks for work. Ours kids have moved out, we have no family in the region, all of my oldest friends live across the country and I'm 20 years older than most of my coworkers. I found myself getting home from work, making dinner and then having absolutely nothing to do for several hours. That's when I got sucked in. Next thing you know I would wake up on a rainy Saturday and just reach for the phone and then it was lunch time and suddenly dinner time. It feels pretty shitty, too. Recently I've had to find things for myself to do in order to make sure my time is better filled otherwise I will "fill" it with doom scrolling. I don't know that my brain is more susceptible (hard to self determine something like that) but my time is certainly more open than it ever was in my life previously.
aDyslecticCrow 1y ago
Young people may even have some level of resistance from exposure. It's effective on all ages.
athrowaway3z 1y ago
A few years ago I was having dinner with a 70y old pastor and his wife. Obviously both extremely engaged with the community etc. Totally tripped me up to realize the wife had become addicted to YouTube. She almost started playing a video at the table as we were having desert.

NoMoreNicksLeft 1y ago

My phone is decent enough to read books... the large iPhone is not so far different in size than the paperbacks I used to enjoy reading when I was younger. And, in a pinch, I can use it for important things. To send a message to someone I care to communicate with or to look up something urgently, or maybe the maps app if I need to go somewhere. But for all other purposes it is worthless to me. 6 months ago I was debugging my furnace and I had a Youtube video to help with that... and it's just unwatchable on the tiny screen. I found myself going back to my desk to watch it on the big screen. Though, even on that, Youube is very unappealing unless I'm looking for something specific. On the computer monitor(s), I could lose the entire day here on HN or (less often now days) reddit. I still can't understand the appeal of gluing my eyeballs to a phone screen.

bityard 1y ago

Doom-scrolling and short-form videos seem to not discriminate by age. I know lots of middle-aged to elderly people who can sit on their phones and scroll for hours on end every day.

switchbak 1y ago
My boomer relatives seem especially susceptible to this. As our local community ties atrophy, I find many old folks with less social contact tend to turn to social media to compensate. I also wonder if the aging brain is particularly vulnerable to some of the darker patterns these platforms employ? It certainly seems like it from the small number of data points I've seen.
- unfitted2545 1y ago
  yep. in my parents case, it might be that they've always thought I was the young, addicted zoomer, and it could never happen to them. it happened to them and now there's no self awareness.
- smileysteve 1y ago
  Distractions aren't new; but they are more 24/7 24 hour "news" is a great example; we leave it on in the background, as Radio or TV, but we're not listening to gain information, we're listening to be entertained - amygdala activated. With AM radio and broadcast TV, low efforts were mostly limited to 2 hour segments from the 80s-90s; then in the late 90s, cable tv became standard, then in the 2000s the internet (chats, reddit, hacker news), and then the smartphone...
- gaoshan 1y ago
  I can tell you that for me (early Gen X) it got bad when my wife was out of town for an extended period of weeks for work. Ours kids have moved out, we have no family in the region, all of my oldest friends live across the country and I'm 20 years older than most of my coworkers. I found myself getting home from work, making dinner and then having absolutely nothing to do for several hours. That's when I got sucked in. Next thing you know I would wake up on a rainy Saturday and just reach for the phone and then it was lunch time and suddenly dinner time. It feels pretty shitty, too. Recently I've had to find things for myself to do in order to make sure my time is better filled otherwise I will "fill" it with doom scrolling. I don't know that my brain is more susceptible (hard to self determine something like that) but my time is certainly more open than it ever was in my life previously.

aDyslecticCrow 1y ago

Young people may even have some level of resistance from exposure. It's effective on all ages.

athrowaway3z 1y ago

A few years ago I was having dinner with a 70y old pastor and his wife. Obviously both extremely engaged with the community etc. Totally tripped me up to realize the wife had become addicted to YouTube. She almost started playing a video at the table as we were having desert.