Never mind your children’s screen time. Worry about your parents’ 

老年人的刷屏时代

Economist

2025-10-23

5 分钟
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  • Few things delight children, or irritate their minders, as much as screen time.

  • Parents nag their offspring to put down their digital devices and pick up a book or a football.

  • Academics such as Jonathan Haidt worry that phones and social media are creating an "anxious generation" of indoorsy introverts.

  • Some countries are banning social media for under-16s.

  • The worry may be focused on the wrong age group.

  • For all the fears around teens and screens, the most square-eyed generation is the elderly.

  • Older people have long been champion tv-viewers.

  • Now a new generation of pensioners are adding to their screen time with smartphones, iPads and game consoles.

  • The result is epic screen sessions, which take up more than half of pensioners' waking hours.

  • The digitisation of old age is a good thing.

  • The elderly have perhaps more to gain from smart devices than any other age group.

  • Facebook and WhatsApp bring daily updates from old friends and faraway grandchildren.

  • Zoom transports church, book clubs and doctors' appointments into the home for people who cannot attend in person.

  • E-commerce removes the need to trek around shops.

  • Hours of entertainment from any era are available on demand.

  • A connected retirement is more fulfilling and fun than an offline one.

  • Older people are also insulated from some of the on-screen risks that threaten teenagers.

  • They have already formed their key real-life relationships,

  • and so are less in danger of the "social stunting" that screen-obsessed children supposedly suffer.

  • Their worldview is less open to manipulation by online weirdos who encourage misogyny or body dysmorphia among young folk.