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Absolutely, because they have the time for it and fewer alternatives. I got my mom a tablet, set her up with ReVanced YouTube & Twitter plus VLC, and now she is

• gtsop 1y ago
  > This is also where the leisure time went. Keynes predicted 15 hour workweek, we decided to just have kids and the elderly not work at all. Amazing analysis.
• dewey 1y ago
  > because they have the time for it and fewer alternatives What are you referring to by fewer alternatives? Isn't there way more ways / activities / infrastructure to spend your time these days than before?
  • blfr 1y ago
    With age your company dwindles as people drift away (or die) so you have fewer people with which to enjoy these activities and many become less attainable/enjoyable with lower physical strength and endurance.
    • jerlam 1y ago
      Most of the current elderly also grew up in an era where they believed cities and urban areas were bad, so they moved out to the suburbs where everything is farther away and requires driving. It requires a lot more effort to do anything and they have effectively isolated themselves. My grandparents who lived in a city could walk down the street, get groceries, and easily meet friends for a snack or chat. Even when they were alone, they were part of a community. My parents' generation all live far away from each other, struggle to get out of the house, and are scared of strangers.
• yapyap 1y ago
  Why would you give your mother access to Twitter, genuinely curious.
  • blfr 1y ago
    My mom had access already. I just patched her app to not show ads, allow video downloads, and have nicer colors. Twitter is also the best news app. You get the info, trend, and critical commentary (with people you follow boosted for you in the comments) all in one go.
  • alt187 1y ago
    Maybe OP's mom was really abusive?
• sdfgsdhjsdffw 1y ago
  > Would it be better if she sat at home with the TV on and a paper book? No, I don't think so. I'm confident TV off and book is better than youtube, for the purpose of maintaining and agile mind.
  • rixed 1y ago
    I'm certain there is a lot more very good content on YT than anywhere on TV, but that's unfortunately not the content that google is pushing toward the users. (Yes, I'm aware that they push whatever the users click onto and whatever makes them profit; I don't care, I still believe they should push the best content).
    • ekjhgkejhgk 1y ago
      I didn't say youtube vs TV, I said youtube vs books.
  • pajamasam 1y ago
    My dad watches niche car repair videos on YouTube and my mom does online art classes. Back when we didn’t have fast internet, my mom would watch crappy reality TV shows out of boredom. I think overall, the internet is taking up more of their time than books/tv did in the past (just as it does for me), but it also gives them access to quality content within their niche interests.
    • ekjhgkejhgk 1y ago
      I didn't say youtube vs TV, I said youtube vs books.
  • arccy 1y ago
    these days books are no guarantee of quality
    • leni536 1y ago
      It never was, we just don't remember the garbage ones.
• NemoNobody 1y ago
  Haha, you think that's where leisure time went?? Wow. Everyone always had kids. Capitalism is why you have no time at all to live AND why you that's your fault. I'm done with HN for the day.
  • leobg 1y ago
    Why capitalism? How about taxation and over-regulation? And if not that, what about envy? You could live like an Irish immigrant 100 years ago, with a wood stove and an outdoor latrine. But you’re not going to want that if everyone around you has got a/c, stainless steel appliances and a Toto washlet.
    • BriggyDwiggs42 1y ago
      >how about taxation and over-regulation Are you convinced that people’s lives get better and that workers get paid more, every time, with less regulation? What about e.g. planned obsolescence or web enshittification or any other strategy where a company can increase its profits by making its product worse? What about mass consumer advertising that constantly manipulates people into buying stuff they don’t care about and wouldn’t have bought before by making them feel like it will give them unrelated things like status or family? Market competition doesn’t solve these problems, it spreads them. > you could live like an irish immigrant I think our society builds what we want to a really large degree. People get taught to feel like getting rich or middle class or whatever is what they should be doing, or like having the expensive car is important. We don’t pop put of the womb knowing what the hell we should want and we learn to want a whole lot of shit we could go without. Also, you’d really struggle to construct that lifestyle for yourself. The only places where land would be cheap enough to be proportional would be sparse places where most work would be hard to find. You’d still need to drive to your jobs presumably, since you wouldn’t have a computer, so you’re paying for a beater, maintenance, gas and insurance. you would probably want to avoid a salaried position because the vast majority of them are gonna want you to work more than 15 hours a week, which cuts you out of a lot of the best paying jobs. I’m not saying you couldn’t do it, but you’d have to have a lot of knowledge to do it. There’s a real barrier to entry there.
• ainiriand 1y ago
  My mum, almost 70, is a speed reader, but extreme. She reads a novel a day and is constantly reading. Not sure it is much better...