[HN Gopher] What if we talked about over-60s' screen time as we ...
___________________________________________________________________
What if we talked about over-60s' screen time as we talk about
young people's?
Author : okasaki
Score : 256 points
Date : 2022-11-23 20:15 UTC (2 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (webdevlaw.uk)
(TXT) w3m dump (webdevlaw.uk)
| JoeAltmaier wrote:
| Really? We conflate the time spend by retired people with the
| activities of the young and supposedly productive?
| PartiallyTyped wrote:
| 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.
| notacoward wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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".
| that_guy_iain wrote:
| 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.
| TedDoesntTalk wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| Both can be addictive.
| thewebcount wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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.
| noasaservice wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| > 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.
| httpz wrote:
| 30 years later, millennials will be on their smartphones while
| complaining kids these days never come out of their VR world.
| speakfreely wrote:
| 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.
| Mountain_Skies wrote:
| That someday EDM will be considered music for the elderly is
| endlessly amusing.
| a4isms wrote:
| When I was first going to nightclubs, Disco and Funk were
| counter-cultures. Disco was hated by the establishment
| because it was associated with homosexuality at a time when
| the Toronto police were conducting bath house raids and
| arresting bookstores for carrying queer literature. Funk was,
| as one documentary put it, "An unapologetic celebration of
| blackness."
|
| Today I can listen to Disco and Funk any time I want, all I
| have to do is push a shopping cart around the supermarket.
| And yes, I turned 60 this year.
| PaulHoule wrote:
| Watch out! Over 60's vote and they can defend themselves from
| your finger wagging and anyone who tries to make them feel
| uncomfortable.
| hindsightbias wrote:
| 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.
| Tao3300 wrote:
| 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.
| malfist wrote:
| 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.
| brandonmenc wrote:
| > No wonder they have a warped perception of politics. That
| little fearbox is controlling their lives.
|
| Ah yes, unlike us enlightened younger people who choose to
| spend our time in fancy online echo chambers.
| AmericanChopper wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| Your grandma watches live sports? So unusual and yet so
| intriguing. Which ones are her favourites?
| AmericanChopper wrote:
| 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.
| Symbiote wrote:
| 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]
| aaron695 wrote:
| louison11 wrote:
| 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.
| chrisseaton wrote:
| I wonder what counts as 'watching'. Like if you measured it I
| probably spend ten hours a day 'listening' to the radio - as in
| it's on in the background in the kitchen most of the time. I'm
| not sitting there intently listening to it and not doing
| anything else. Probably the same for this TV statistic.
| _-david-_ wrote:
| Do you really think watching TV vs internet usage really
| different for warping political views?
| EamonnMR wrote:
| I think that video media is for reasons I cannot explain, a
| far more effective persuasive tool than written media. If
| your internet diet is YouTube/TikTok you're definitely just
| as vulnerable.
| _-david-_ wrote:
| I think we are agreeing. I think many people who consume a
| lot of TV media would be the same people who consume a lot
| of YouTube or TikTok. If the internet didn't exist heavy
| YouTube users would be watching hours of TV. This causes me
| to think the problem isn't so much TV causing distortions,
| but other factors that are not unique to TV.
| BirdieNZ wrote:
| Amusing Ourselves to Death by Neil Postman addresses this;
| it's more or less pre-internet but it speaks to how
| different media forms work quite differently due to their
| inherent nature. TV inherently is the way it is (and
| lectures, and newspapers, and all other forms of media)
| because it cannot be anything else.
| malfist wrote:
| I think they're both a contributing factor. But I think long
| viewership of one channel is particularly dangerous. When you
| watch something like Fox news or MSNBC, you're getting only
| voices in your echo chamber and perspectives from one company
| alone.
|
| The internet has somewhat of the opposite problem, it has an
| echo chamber for every niche, and gives a platform to every
| voice.
|
| I think spending more time with people, or in projects is a
| much more healthy way to entertain yourself, and doesn't as
| easily lead to view distortion.
| _-david-_ wrote:
| You can be in just as much of an echo chamber online. I
| think you are overestimating how much people really expand
| themselves online (or maybe I'm underestimating it). I know
| a lot of people who basically just get the same as Fox or
| MSNBC, but online. If they see something they don't like
| they block the user or unfriend their friends if they start
| pushing politics they don't like.
|
| I guess my real question is if there is just a problem with
| being in an echo chamber or if TV is uniquely worse.
| seattle_spring wrote:
| It has the potential to be different, absolutely.
| notch656a wrote:
| You and I are having a conversation about politics. I assume
| you think you have some fairly moderate views and you aren't
| being funded by a media mogul with billions of dollars.
|
| How would you and I talk over the TV?
|
| IMO unidirectional media is worse in a lot of ways; it trains
| the counterparty they have no say and they are a passive
| receiver of information with the only speakers being an
| extremely narrow selection of paid parties.
| _-david-_ wrote:
| How many people actually use the comments vs just consuming
| the content? Even if many people read the comments (which I
| doubt) the majority of the comments aren't insightful and
| don't provide any contradiction to the point of the video.
| I don't have any evidence, but I think this may even make
| things worse. Since many people like to be apart of the
| crowd if all they are seeing is everybody agreeing it could
| solidify their views.
|
| Also, when it comes to TV and radio some shows have callers
| to the show. It does make it interactive and can provide
| alternative points. This appears to be falling out of favor
| though.
| orwin wrote:
| Also, written media is inherently superior to animated
| media in my opinion, if you want something else than
| entertainment and factoids.
|
| I mean, i like alternative history, and even history
| channels on youtube or the television. But i would never
| form an opinion from them. I would rather read, even old
| and criticized Paxton books, because i know i would stumble
| on some stuff, sometimes rightly, often not, and the
| lecture of newer books will confirm, or infirm my original
| thought, and allow me to form better one (not a WW2 nerd by
| the way (i really prefer the 16th to 19th), but i think
| Paxton should be the most read historian on a non history-
| focused forum. And he was my entry point into the science).
| dislikedtom2 wrote:
| Same goes for twitter. Gosh I hope nobody uses 6 hours of
| twitter a day.
| sys_64738 wrote:
| 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.
| tomcam wrote:
| > 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.
| beardyw wrote:
| 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.
| [deleted]
| UncleEntity wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| Listening to too much degenerate Rock and Roll on the radio.
| wetmore wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| As if TV was even remotely related to spending all day scrolling
| through social media. There's no comparison between the two.
| Mountain_Skies wrote:
| True, tv doesn't alter its content on the fly minute-by-minute,
| using an algorithm tuned to your own personal emotional
| triggers.
| googlryas wrote:
| 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]
| nottorp wrote:
| I've always wondered how someone can talk about the perils of
| mobile phones and then binge watch lousy TV series.
| willhinsa wrote:
| "Las Vegas pre-COVID"
|
| 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
| softwaredoug wrote:
| 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)?
| ortusdux wrote:
| 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/yz7y...
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| I wonder how many realize that censoring information is a human
| habit as old as time?
| bogwog wrote:
| 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.
| gspencley wrote:
| 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.
| NoraCodes wrote:
| It's hard not to interpret this as a kind of "youth is wasted
| on the young" sentiment - that children shouldn't be allowed to
| do things they enjoy if those things are seen as wasteful, but
| that retirees should. I'd submit that society might be better
| off if we only required people to work to a degree reasonable
| for their mental and physical health, and didn't frame our
| entire lives around "getting somewhere" so we could finally be
| left alone. That might mean profits stop growing quite as
| quickly, but I think that's a fair trade for people actually
| being happier.
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| Better yet, why not snuff people when they get to 30?
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logan%27s_Run_(film)
| ar_lan wrote:
| I think the same thing. The concept of retiring early has
| never made sense to me - but I enjoy writing software, and
| building things, and learning things, etc. Financial
| independence _does_ make sense to me, but only in-so-much
| that I want to be able to generally provide for my family,
| and have enough slight cushion to be able to take drastic
| creative risks and not have to starve to do so.
|
| I don't mind if I'm working when I'm 70/80 (as long as I'm
| physically capable to) - I do mind if I'm slogging 60hr
| weeks, doing things I'm not interested in, at those ages
| however.
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| I'm "retired," but that's mostly because I ran into a bunch
| of the types of folks that have been adding to the comments
| on this story, and gave up on looking for work.
|
| I won't go, where I'm not wanted.
|
| Best damn thing that ever happened to me. I "retired" at
| 55, and have been more productive, in the last five years,
| than I probably was, in the previous 20. It's amazing what
| happens when you don't have clueless, jargon-addled middle
| managers, interfering with the projects, and destroying
| work productivity.
|
| The coroner is gonna need to rub "YTIa3W[?]" off my cheek.
| nradov wrote:
| People can already choose to work less for mental and
| physical health reasons. Just move to a low cost area and do
| the bare minimum work to obtain necessities.
|
| But people who want a nice large house, luxury cars, new
| electronics, and fancy vacations are going to have to work
| harder in ways that might not be optimal for health. Most
| middle class people seem to be voluntarily willing to make
| that trade, and you're not going to convince them otherwise.
|
| For society as a whole, growing profits represent an overall
| increase in living standards (although the benefits are
| unevenly distributed). If we were to collectively decide that
| current living standards are sufficient and stop trying to
| grow then we might have easy, pleasant lives for a couple
| generations but would eventually be overrun by more growth-
| oriented foreign societies. Life is a competitive sport and
| we ignore that reality at our peril. There are more important
| things than happiness.
| Karrot_Kream wrote:
| > It's hard not to interpret this as a kind of "youth is
| wasted on the young" sentiment - that children shouldn't be
| allowed to do things they enjoy if those things are seen as
| wasteful, but that retirees should.
|
| This seems like a motivated conclusion. Children and retirees
| are not the same. Children are flexible and lack life
| experience. Small events leave large imprints on children.
| Older folks tend to get less flexible with age and have lots
| of life experience, so an understanding of what they do and
| do not enjoy. While there's definitely similarities (we're
| all human after all), I don't see this conclusion following
| at all.
|
| That doesn't mean that retirees _should_ simply passively
| consume low-complexity content or anything. More that older
| folk will generally understand themselves, their habits, and
| importantly their weaknesses better than children. Many
| "retirees" spend their days doing their best work
| unencumbered by the self-doubt and expectations they had of
| themselves when they were young.
| sgustard wrote:
| There's also something childlike about elders as they
| experience mental decline. There's a reason we try to protect
| people from "elder scams." Personally I hope if I'm found in
| front of the TV absorbing conspiracy theories for hours a day
| somebody clocks me on the head and drags me to safety.
| onecommentman wrote:
| How many hours a day do _you_ spend on various social media
| being manipulated by dark patterning, agitprop and echo
| chambers...eh, Sonny? :-) Are you sure _you're_ staying
| balanced and objective?
|
| Just easier to ID manipulative media when you aren't the
| target demographic (and it isn't your flavor of conspiracy).
| It's not necessarily age-driven, but you're right that the
| isolation of age and the relative lack of trusted feedback
| makes it worse.
|
| Please post your viewing habits so the Elders can assess
| whether they should send someone to perform preventive
| percussive maintenance on _your_ skull. :-)
| waboremo wrote:
| Especially as more "elder scams" resort to tapping into their
| loneliness to encourage action, it's important families and
| communities pay more attention to this growing problem of
| elders attached to their screens.
| bumby wrote:
| I think this misses the productivity aspect of the parent's
| comment. Conceivably, there is a bigger productivity hit with
| young people since the assumption may be that retired
| people's most productive years are behind them *
|
| * I do recognize all the problems with this assumption, like
| the fact that older people can continue to be productive in
| retirement, even if it's not necessarily economically
| productive. I also cringe at the idea that a society is
| always hyper-focused on productivity. Despite all that, I
| also know it's a common viewpoint.
| bobthepanda wrote:
| To some degree, we kind of caused this, because we've
| structured work society where we essentially burn out by
| the time we're 65.
|
| Before the advent of old age systems like pensions or
| Social Security elders mostly suffered through high elderly
| poverty rates. The current system is certainly better,
| because elders are not starving or forcing themselves into
| sex work to pay for food and medical bills [1] but now it
| turns out being too idle might also be problematic.
|
| I know in Japan, there are attempts to address this with
| organizations that hire seniors to do part time jobs like
| sweeping and cleaning. It mostly serves as an optional
| supplement to income and it gets them out of the house if
| they're alone. But the way we run cleaning operations in
| the US is also to run people down to the bone.
|
| [1] - This is a thing in South Korea where elder poverty is
| much higher than the rest of the OECD due to a very bare
| social net. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bacchus_Ladies
| ClumsyPilot wrote:
| > will leave me the hell alone to do whatever I want to with
| the rest of my limited time here on earth.
|
| Many elders are left to wither away alone, and loneliness of
| older people is a rampant issue - they want to feel loved or at
| least feel relevant in the family and not forgotten.
| bawolff wrote:
| I find the view that productive achievements are a chore, a
| thing, that once accomplished, thankfully we never have to do
| again, kind of sad.
|
| What's the point of living if not to interact with the world?
| myaccount9786 wrote:
| I disagree that consuming media and participating online is
| not "interacting with the world". I spend a lot of my free
| time reading Wikipedia, watching YouTube, and playing games.
| This content comes from "the world". At my job I sit in front
| of a computer and interact with people via text and voice
| call. This is interacting with "the world".
|
| I don't understand why we fetishize in-person interaction as
| being "the world" and virtual interaction as "not the world".
|
| What about reading books? Would you criticize someone for
| reading too many books? Does that person not have a "point in
| living" in your opinion?
|
| In my opinion, this is a true Scotsman fallacy. And the bias
| is due to nostalgia.
| myaccount9786 wrote:
| That being said, I think there is a general bias in
| American culture towards "making something of yourself",
| which results in the act of participating in non-productive
| activities (ex: "mindless tv" such as gameshows,
| infomercials) as something which you need an excuse to do.
| For example: "I need to de-stress so I can be productive
| tomorrow". When you get old, this excuse is no longer
| possible. Which is why folks refer to vegetating like this
| as "sad".
|
| A hedonistic/utilitarian framework is a better model to
| look at these situations. Is that elderly individual
| enjoying themselves? Yes. Will their inaction today result
| in negative consequences (financial, health, etc.) later in
| life? No. In this framework, it's a perfectly good use of
| their time then.
|
| As a redneck, I love America. But I think this question
| posed by the OP is interesting because it shows the
| tradeoff everyone must make in American culture between
| exercising individual freedoms and increasing social
| credit/value/standing.
| oblio wrote:
| > This is interacting with "the world".
|
| To each their own, but no, it's not the world. We're made
| for real, in person interaction. Huge chunks of our brains
| are made to discern subtle facial details or body
| movements.
|
| I remember there are studies that socialization is good
| even for introverts. They think it isn't, but it is.
|
| We're social creatures by design, it's built very deep into
| us. To try otherwise is foolish for 99.9999% of people. Of
| course, everyone thinks they're that 1 person in a
| million:-)
| MouseTown wrote:
| How about raising children with the stated goal of having
| them move out?
| bawolff wrote:
| I'm not sure what you are trying to say. I'm not suggesting
| you should do the same productive achievement all your
| life. Life changes and so should your goals as time moves
| on.
|
| Also, why are you having children if your only goal is to
| get rid of them? Yes, part of having children is hoping and
| preparing for them to eventually be independent adults, but
| that's hardly the only thing raising children is about.
| MouseTown wrote:
| You have the "right" as much as the next person but society is
| most benefited from those with experience helping those
| without.
|
| The argument that you deserve to watch TV all day because you
| once had a job is curious.
| gspencley wrote:
| > The argument that you deserve to watch TV all day because
| you once had a job is curious.
|
| How so? I think you're missing the most important part of my
| comment, which was about encouraging children to discover
| their passions and achieve self-sufficiency.
|
| It's not about "once holding a job." It's about being able to
| take care of yourself. I'm not saying that I like the idea of
| spending the latter part of my years being unproductive, but
| that the wealth accrued during those productive years gives
| one the ability to do that.
|
| If I'm not dependent on anyone, if I worked and saved in
| order to earn that life for myself, then yes I deserve to
| pursue my own happiness whatever that means for me and it's
| no one else's business or place to dictate otherwise.
| dylan604 wrote:
| Then by your argument, there should be no young teachers as
| what the hell kind of experiences could they possibly have to
| teach?
| vkou wrote:
| Most of the job of a teacher is being a publicly appointed
| babysitter.
|
| Much of the rest is teaching the basics, which, as a
| functional adult, they should have decades of experience
| with.
| oneoff786 wrote:
| Teachers don't teach experiential knowledge
| Zagill wrote:
| Probably all of the experience they gained by getting a
| degree and becoming certified to teach, for a start
| gus_massa wrote:
| Most people while you are working, save money in the
| retirement plan. So when they retire, they are just using the
| money they saved, not living out ot thin air.
|
| In some jobs, old people can still contribute. But other jobs
| like that require a lot of physical strength are almost
| impossible.
|
| An extreme case are sports. After some age, your body is just
| not good enough. Some can transition to being a coach or
| reporter. Some are only good at kicking a ball. If they are
| good enough to make millions of people happy, why can't they
| save some of the money they earn and have a nice life?
| kevinventullo wrote:
| Okay deal, we'll leave you alone if you promise not to vote.
| lmm wrote:
| Children are more stressed and have less free time than anyone
| else; it's not their fault that they're legally barred from
| doing anything "productive". They're not even allowed to vote
| on the laws that bind them!
| taurath wrote:
| > 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.
|
| Interesting that the perceived needs of people change over time
| based on how productive they are or were. This belies a sort of
| strangely managerial/administrative mindset as to the values
| that make a person "valid" to take time to pursue things they
| enjoy, and "earn" down time.
| yamazakiwi wrote:
| 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.
| thenerdhead wrote:
| I like this perspective. It reads like the Ben Franklin quote:
| "Many young men die at age 25, but are not buried until they're
| 75."
| thwayunion wrote:
| My MiL spends 10+ hours a day watching conspiracy theory videos
| on the internet (used to be YouTube, but now a lot of the
| channels are suspended so she uses alternative sites). It
| doesn't make her happy, it isn't good for her physical health,
| and it causes extreme social isolation.
|
| Anger and conspiracy completely dominate her personality. We
| can't go more than 10-20 minutes without some sort of serious
| accusation, which are often passive-aggressive and accusatory
| toward people in the room. She has directly accused me of
| multiple serious felonies and conspiracies, by virtue of the
| fact that I work in tech.
|
| She is no longer allowed to visit one of her daughters because
| my BiL (wife's sister's husband?) is not on speaking terms with
| her. She chooses not to visit another daughter. She floats
| around church social groups, who all sort of give her a few
| months and then punt her to the next group.
|
| To be clear: these aren't down to major political
| disagreements. Most of her family and friend group are all on
| the same page. Even her Q Anon neighbor won't speak with her
| anymore. It's bad. She has no friends and is slowly losing her
| family.
|
| When she visits us for holidays we have to warn friends not to
| engage with the fights she tries to pick. We train them on how
| to treat her as they would a child without being patronizing.
| It's hard.
|
| She is not happy, and I wish we could get her to spend less
| time watching videos on the internet.
| satvikpendem wrote:
| There are stories of adult children deprogramming their
| parents / in-laws by blocking these sites via their routers,
| and within a few weeks they're able to see their parents'
| views and demeanor visibly change for the positive.
|
| The truth is most people don't really go to these sites out
| of choice, they do it out of habit. If you can alter the
| habit, you can stop them from consuming such content. It's no
| different that stopping any other habit, like (if you're a
| smoker or alcoholic) not going to places where people smoke
| for example.
|
| https://old.reddit.com/r/HermanCainAward/comments/vb3ddu/rhe.
| ..
| neura wrote:
| I have a relative like this, but she watches absolutely
| nothing. She believes some of her family members are out to
| get her though. She's in an assisted living facility and her
| phone has been taken away because she has called the police
| too many times, claiming that one of her family members is
| breaking in her window, to poison her.
|
| I'm not claiming that's the same thing, but I'm not sure less
| time watching videos will correct the issue or won't just
| lead to some other issue.
| ajsnigrutin wrote:
| I find it sad, that you can find such stuff on discovery
| network channels... so channels that were for legit education
| and documentaries not that long ago, and now show some
| reality crap (pawn stars,...) and fake conspiracy crap
| (ancient aliens, mermaids, bigfoot, etc.).
| ClumsyPilot wrote:
| > bigfoot
|
| That particular one offends me the most - we went from 0.3
| megapixels to 300 and it's still fucking blurry
| kristianc wrote:
| There is something to this -- the general theme of daytime TV
| in Britain, when it's not doing endless property shows, or
| shows where people buy property in other countries, is "the
| man is out to get you" -- a litany of shows on small time
| criminals, consumer scams, or local crime waves. Perhaps not
| surprisingly, Britain's elderly population tends to be very
| right wing.
| ClumsyPilot wrote:
| > a litany of shows on ... consumer scams
|
| That sounds like it could be good to be aware of, came
| across so many acams myself, most prosperous industry after
| brexit
| _jal wrote:
| In the 80s, US AM radio was taken over by similar content.
| It is happening again with local news, both broadcast and
| "print".
|
| Seems to be the fate of declining media modalities.
| jeffbee wrote:
| > accused me of multiple serious felonies and conspiracies,
| by virtue of the fact that I work in tech.
|
| You can't use this site for an hour without that happening
| right here.
| Gordonjcp wrote:
| > She floats around church social groups, who all sort of
| give her a few months and then punt her to the next group.
|
| My teenager and her friends know someone like this who they
| described as "speedrunning friendships", and honestly that's
| the best description you're going to hear.
| thwayunion wrote:
| It's even worse. She _cycles_ through, as in multiple times
| with each group. The church knows her issues, so they cycle
| her through 3-4 small groups for a few months at a time so
| that she 's included and taken care of but not overly
| burdensome on any particular group of people.
| Gordonjcp wrote:
| The patience of saints. Good to know that someone's
| keeping an eye on her, I guess.
| onecommentman wrote:
| My impression is that there have been "cranky paranoid old
| pensioners" around since the dawn of time. I wouldn't ascribe
| your MiL's attitude or behaviors primarily to on-line videos
| or TV. They've been ranting in fraternal lodges, political
| party offices, coffeehouses, etc. for many hundreds of years
| prior. Twas ever thus. Keeps the circulation flowing for old
| folks.
|
| If you can find someone her age who shares her "disruptive"
| world-views and likes arguing, facilitating a _folie-a-deux_
| might make things better for all concerned. Older folks tend
| to become more blunt and uncensored as time progresses and
| they also accept blunt and uncensored feedback...but
| generally only from those in their own age group. Of course,
| then there are two of them :-).
|
| If it gets really bad, then a (surreptitious?) evaluation for
| some degenerative brain disorder probably needs to happen.
| Count your blessings, it isn't that bad yet and as a SiL you
| are blissfully distant from the need to initiate anything.
| ClumsyPilot wrote:
| > I wouldn't ascribe your MiL's attitude or behaviors
| primarily to on-line videos or TV
|
| The social network rahe machine feeds your inherent fears
| like a drug dealer feeds off those in desperate or dead end
| life situation. They are somewhere between exploiting for
| profit an existing condition, or creating / worsening it.
| vkou wrote:
| I have a close friend who is in that exact same situation
| with his mother. She lost her job, her husband lost his job,
| she's representing herself in a vaccine lawsuit (Spoilers:
| it's not going well), and she is completely incapable of
| being a human being around her children, all of it because
| she's fully committed to the Qult.
|
| This isn't advanced age mental decline, this is just the
| consequence of a garbage-in-garbage-out information diet, and
| every nutty group building their own Facebook echo chamber.
| rapind wrote:
| > This isn't advanced age mental decline, this is just the
| consequence of a garbage-in-garbage-out information diet.
|
| I'm not goong to excuse crappy behaviour, but given that
| they both lost their job I think we can assume the economy
| is also a contributing factor (not claiming it's the sole
| factor though).
| vkou wrote:
| They lost their jobs in 2021, because they, among other
| things, thought that someone who has taken the COVID
| vaccine 'emits particles that damage the female body'.
| (They would not allow their son into their house for
| months after he was vaccinated.)
|
| The economy was not the problem last year, unassailable
| certainty in ignorant beliefs was. They have new jobs
| now, which are harder, and much worse paying.
| rapind wrote:
| Just wanted to acknowledge your response. Don't really
| have anything to add though. Probably a whole bunch of
| contributing factors /shrug.
| SargeDebian wrote:
| You mean the economy that is facing a worker shortage has
| caused them to lose their job?
| rapind wrote:
| Is it a worker shortage or a wage shortage though?
| the_lonely_road wrote:
| A 55 year old losing their 100k job and facing only
| minimum wage offers that replaces 30% of their income is
| a sad reality for a lot of Americans right now. There is
| not a worker shortage in every area of the economy just
| in the economy as a whole.
| SQueeeeeL wrote:
| I love the idea of forcing a fired 59 year old mid level
| executive to suddenly serve coffee at a Dunkin Donuts,
| and shouting at them asking "Why aren't you happy with
| this job!?!"
|
| Realistically, the reason we have a worker shortage is
| because all the jobs are non-unionized shit jobs that
| treat you like a meat puppet and actively abuse you
| [deleted]
| jonny_eh wrote:
| DougN7 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| Karunamon wrote:
| 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
| bawolff wrote:
| > Hint: it isn't because "boomers" are more vulnerable to
| misinformation
|
| Is this actually true though? Well all demographics are
| vulnerable to misinformation, seniors do seem on average
| somewhat easier to manipulate. There is a reason that
| scams often target seniors, it isn't because all groups
| are equally susciptible to manipulation.
| dylan604 wrote:
| It's lovely to see that the youth of today know
| everything just like the youth of your day (my day,
| whatevs). The boomers get made fun of by the kids because
| they don't know tech, but the kids don't want to admit
| that they fall prey to the similar
| scams/conspiracies/blah just because it comes from some
| influencer.
| [deleted]
| mitchdoogle wrote:
| What's doing whatever you want have to do with voting? You
| suggesting that people who have leisure time shouldn't be
| voting?
| bawolff wrote:
| I dont agree with the setiment, but i think the logical
| connection is the social contract of voting: in exchange
| for the right to chose leaders, the citizenry are expected
| to be informed voters. I suspect the parent post is
| allegeding that those who watch tv all day are remiss in
| their duties as an elector.
| Mountain_Skies wrote:
| Sounds like the justification that was used to deny the
| right to vote to people, mostly minorities, that couldn't
| pass a poll test.
| bawolff wrote:
| Or like the current justification for why non-citizens
| cant vote.
|
| But yes, i agree it is a very easily abused slipery slope
| and why i dont agree with the sentiment except in a
| hortatory sense.
| tomcam wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| Until rioting becomes a meme
| paganel wrote:
| > 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.
| throwaway22032 wrote:
| 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.
| paulcole wrote:
| > The issue is really that doing _anything_ mindlessly is a
| waste of life
|
| So? It's your life and what's a waste to you isn't a waste to
| me. I watch about 15 hours of TikTok a week and love it.
| slothtrop wrote:
| Everything is a waste. The only issue as it pertains to well-
| being is that too much passive consumption is both unhealthy
| and leads to lethargy. It can have it's place. Some people seem
| to enjoy it more than others.
| morepork wrote:
| I don't think it's fair to judge what is a "waste of life" or
| not. What one wants to do with their own life is a subjective
| thing. Each have their own interests, comfort zones, and
| personal struggles that they have to deal with.
| luckylion wrote:
| Waste is waste, that's not a judgement about the person
| wasting something, it's a description of what's happening.
|
| If you throw away food, you're wasting it. You might be
| allergic to it, but that doesn't change the "thrown-away food
| is food-waste" bit, it just explains why you don't want that
| food around.
| Karrot_Kream wrote:
| Then can you come up with a rigorous definition of "waste"
| here that others would agree with? Definitions usually
| require consensus.
| afarrell wrote:
| Resources spent which, after their consumption, do not
| result in an experience which a human would look back
| upon with fondness or gratitude.
| cpsns wrote:
| Probably not, because video game addicts will not admit
| they have an issue, much less one that wastes valuable
| time.
| willis936 wrote:
| I'm wasting my life working on world changing problems when
| I could be spending it playing WoW.
| luckylion wrote:
| Doesn't it get incredible repetitive and boring with
| time? You get a new extension/DLC and you have a few new
| things to discover and monsters to slay or whatever, and
| then it's back to farming gold?
|
| At that point, you're probably 'playing' it because of
| the social interaction with other people, aren't you?
| willis936 wrote:
| I'm playing devil's advocate. I haven't actually played
| much WoW, but I have spent a long time thinking about
| escapism with a critical eye. It's one of my biggest
| regrets.
|
| I encourage people to waste their time. I was the
| happiest when I had free time to putz around with games
| and hobbies. I made stuff for the joy of it. I wouldn't
| wish a successful career on my worst enemy.
|
| I don't see any utility in distinguishing between flavors
| of escapism. Why would productivity make a judge say one
| waste of time is better than another? Because that judge
| doesn't see the value in wasting time and the ones with
| creativity seem more like work and less like fun.
| luckylion wrote:
| I don't think that everything "non-productive" is
| "wasting time", but wasting time is by definition not
| productive.
|
| It's the difference between sleeping so you can be awake
| and putting yourself into a dreamless coma because you
| can't think of anything better to do. Watching TV (and
| not having it play in the background while you're doing
| something else) is the equivalent of a coma.
| markdestouches wrote:
| There are two different types of "want". You want to live a
| full and meaningful life. You also want another cigarette if
| you're addicted to smoking. Sure there are people who would
| consciously choose a cigarette, but they are a minority. Most
| people would rather be productive and do something that makes
| their lives better even if they end up lighting a cigarette.
| ad404b8a372f2b9 wrote:
| You're already positioning yourself in a very specific
| value framework when you put productivity and self-
| improvement at the forefront. There are many other
| frameworks in which finding pleasure in the present has
| value.
|
| I've known people who chased the future so hard they never
| took the time to live.
| dools wrote:
| So if they had watched more TV would that have
| constituted "taking the time to live"?
| ad404b8a372f2b9 wrote:
| If watching TV had brought them pleasure in the present,
| yes that would fit the definition I was using.
| sneak wrote:
| Consider a moment the framework where people's actions tell
| the truth about their true wants, and the possibility that
| many people constantly and effortlessly tell lies (to
| themselves and others) about what they actually want.
| yamazakiwi wrote:
| Don't confuse output with productivity.
|
| You can also do "productive" things while you smoke a
| cigarette (albeit physically unhealthy).
|
| Many people do a lot of things they think are productive
| but see no improvement in outcomes. i.e. reading articles
| bscphil wrote:
| > Many people do a lot of things they think are
| productive but see no improvement in outcomes. i.e.
| reading articles
|
| Or to put a different spin on this, some people spend so
| much time producing things that they never pick up a
| book.
| skellertor wrote:
| Speaking about wasting time! Reading that article was a waste
| of time. That was more of a journal entry of a woman
| disgruntled with her family life, than it was on the "screen
| time" of various age groups
| jodrellblank wrote:
| > " _The idea here seems to be that it 's OK for people to
| watch hours of TV a day every day._"
|
| No, the idea is that it's unfair for people who watch 6 hours
| of TV/day to be trying to support authoritarian and intrusive
| legislation against young people on the grounds that the young
| people "spend too much time watching screens, which is bad for
| them and bad for society". The idea isn't "it's OK to watch 6
| hours of TV", it's "if you want to be left alone to watch 6
| hours of TV, stop trying to control the life of someone else
| who wants to be left alone to watch 6 hours of TikTok".
|
| > " _The issue is really that doing _anything_ mindlessly is a
| waste of life._ "
|
| No, that's a different issue. The issue is that the government
| in the UK keeps pushing for more and more authoritarian
| surveillance and control laws over the internet and smartphones
| and justifying it with the kind of rhetoric used in the blog -
| screen time is bad because of radicalisation, spectres of
| terrorism, the collapse of society and community, and etc. And
| the Conservative government's largest voter base in the UK is
| the elderly.
|
| > " _There 's also an enormous difference here in that older
| people often can't really do much else._"
|
| I'm assuming your grandma is significantly older than 65? With
| a UK average life expectancy in the 80s, a lot of people past
| 65 are still well capable of doing things; even then part of
| the problem mentioned in the blog post is that UK society
| supports little else for people to do, what with the cost of
| living crisis (Conservative government mostly voted for by
| older people policies of austerity, running public services
| into the ground), Brexit, mostly voted for by older people,
| house price crisis, largely propped up by - and beneficial to -
| older people, the binge drinking culture, wider social issue
| where the one thing to go out to of an evening is go to the
| pub, the car focus instead of public transport focus
| (Conservative government, see above).
|
| That is, there is a big feeling in the UK that the elderly have
| screwed up the country's future with selfish short-term
| policies, which disproportionately hurts the young who have
| more future to care about and fewer saved resources, and are
| trying to control the young even more while living on pension
| payments propped up by the working young.
| scotty79 wrote:
| > The issue is really that doing _anything_ mindlessly is a
| waste of life.
|
| So as long as I'm gaming mindfully it's all fine?
|
| > Would I recommend it? No, huge waste of time.
|
| I have a suspicion that on my deathbed I'd be regretting only
| one thing. That I didn't get more time to play and have fun.
| LatteLazy wrote:
| I don't disagree that it's a waste. That said, I don't like the
| idea of society (the older end especially) or the government or
| anyone else really telling me what to do with my time. This
| isn't just some libertarian stance. The UK has been very clear
| with anyone under 50: Want an education? You're on your own.
| Want a decent job? You're on your own. Want housing? You're on
| your own. The idea that having had to do all the difficult bits
| myself, other people now want to sweep in and tell me what I
| can do in my spare time is offensive. I know that's not what
| you're suggesting, I just want to voice the reason people would
| object despite you being correct about the ultimate affects...
| Gordonjcp wrote:
| > The UK has been very clear with anyone under 50: Want an
| education? You're on your own. Want a decent job? You're on
| your own. Want housing? You're on your own.
|
| *England* has. Scotland takes a very different approach.
| LatteLazy wrote:
| Careful, Scotland manages more affordable education only
| because it gets special subsidies. For which it has to stay
| in a union it does not like.
|
| And where does that leave the situation on jobs and
| housing? Better than in England? Really?
|
| The truth is, this is a generational struggle, not a
| geographical one. An imaginary line on a map won't help you
| I'm afraid.
| InCityDreams wrote:
| But who the heck is anyone to define a 'waste of time'. It's
| taken me quite some years to convince my partner that a
| smartphone is considerably less expensive to keep on, rather
| than the tv. She uses the tv for 'company', even when the whole
| family is at home. I had to rig her smartphone to some larger
| speakers to provide a level of bass that seemed realistic to
| her, so that's that. Technically, she's gone from 10hrs a day
| with the tv on (watching?), to 10 hrs a day "extra" (watching)
| on her smartphone. Neither is correct, (and nor is she
| British). It is however, her time, her life. And it is beyond
| me to agree, or disagree (with her) that 'the issue is really
| that doing _anything_ mindlessly is a waste of life'. We are
| here, we are going to not be.
| standardUser wrote:
| WoW is a more social activity than a lot of people ever partake
| in on a regular basis. Claiming it is "exactly the same" as
| flipping channels doesn't add up. In fact, I can't think of a
| less interactive, less social, less engaging activity than
| flipping channels (something I spent much of my youth doing).
| ericmcer wrote:
| I have a lot of fond memories of WoW. While it is a bit of a
| waste for a young person who is doing it instead of working
| on their future, it seems ideal for someone who is retired.
| Problem solving, socializing, etc. is way healthier than most
| screen activities.
| Nav_Panel wrote:
| I agree that WoW is a waste when considered in relation to
| the space of possible things a young person can be doing.
| In practice, though, teenagers are basically trapped in
| their school related social circle and activities. For me,
| WoW was a place to _be someone else_ , other than who I was
| at school, and to feel valued for reasons beyond my
| performance in high school social games.
|
| Beyond that, I legitimately think that my experiences with
| raiding, min-maxing, grinding, etc. were a sort of
| preparation for the social dynamics of... corporate
| leadership. Of course, a lot more was required (technical
| skills, philosophical grounding, etc), but it was a good
| start.
| komali2 wrote:
| Growing up in suburban Houston our options truly were
| limited to make WoW not a bad option to engage with all
| sorts of people. ALL other social activities require a
| car, so until my mom or dad will was available to drive
| me my only recourse was the internet.
|
| Now I live in Taiwan and I envy the young people who i
| see out and about all over thanks to the bus and train
| system, participating in all sorts of random activities.
| Karrot_Kream wrote:
| Depends on how you use/play it, just like it depends on how
| you use social media or TV. A lot of my social media usage is
| finding stuff and sharing with friends in group chats and us
| having discussions/laughs over them. Most of the "TV"
| (streaming services, anime, etc) that I watch is done with my
| partner or a group of friends. If you just turn your brain
| off and grind, then WoW or any other MMORPG is an equivalent
| mindless time waste to just consuming TV. I suspect it gets
| more fondness in nerdy circles just because more folks in
| these circles relate to it.
| standardUser wrote:
| I didn't play very long (under a year) but I had a ton of
| fun mostly thanks to my guildmates. I didn't mind some
| grinding, and WoW has _plenty_ , but most of what kept me
| coming back was to meet up with other players I had gotten
| to know and had a lot of fun playing and chatting with.
| Karrot_Kream wrote:
| Definitely, and I have many friends who still play MMOs
| as adults who do the same thing. They open group chats
| with longtime (and new!) friends and play. The grind is a
| thing to do while everyone hangs out. But I also know
| people who turn their brain off and grind as a way to
| just pass the time. One of my favorite ways to waste time
| is to get a little high, fire up Diablo, and grind away.
| It's the same with social media. Social media can be
| social or it can be parasocial depending on how you use
| it.
| hollerith wrote:
| The problem WoW shares with TV is that for many (most)
| people, logging in to WoW is an easier route to a pleasurable
| experience than any safe affordable activity available to a
| person living 70 years ago or 700 years ago or 7000 years
| ago. One worry that neuroscientist Andrew Huberman and others
| have is that if you partake often in potent pleasures that do
| not require much effort to achieve, you lose motivation to
| work hard at pursuits that haven't been carefully crafted by
| "designers" to be maximally engaging and pleasurable or
| require more effort or sacrifice to access than WoW or TV
| require.
|
| It is not obvious to me that WoW's being very interactive (or
| its putting you in communication with real people) protects
| it from having the adverse effect I just described. Maybe the
| interactivity merely gives the designers of WoW more levers
| to pull in their quest to make WoW as engaging and compelling
| as possible -- which is more engaging and compelling than is
| probably good for you for something as easy to access as WoW
| is.
|
| Specifically, if you binge on WoW it can take over a month
| for your motivational system to return to normal, and while
| it its taking its time returning, you have less motivation to
| tackle real life. Also, since pleasure causes whatever you
| were doing right before the pleasure to be "reinforced", if
| you play WoW a lot, then stop, for years afterwards whenever
| you are tired or under stress while at the computer you will
| tend to type in the command to start up WoW without any
| conscious awareness of intending to do so.
|
| Of course video games, online role-playing games and TV
| aren't the only activities with this problem. The paperback
| novel for example is an invention that provides customers (at
| least those good at turning printed words into mental
| imagery) easy access to a fairly potent pleasure. This is a
| problem that society has been grappling with for a few
| centuries.
| profstasiak wrote:
| parasocial maybe, but not social.
| SketchySeaBeast wrote:
| I don't understand - the relationships between guild mates
| aren't one sided at all. WoW raiding is like being on the
| phone with all your friends while you play a video game
| together.
| Apocryphon wrote:
| Proxysocial
| yamazakiwi wrote:
| At least in my case they are absolutely social in nature,
| not parasocial in the slightest, what are you on about?
| lezojeda wrote:
| "Adjective. parasocial (not comparable) One-sided
| (especially of a relationship, as for example between
| celebrities and their audience or fans)."
|
| In which way organizing a raid via (say Discord or whatever
| communication way you use) coordinating efforts towards a
| common objective and, in some cases, meeting your teammates
| offline is something parasocial?
| PeterisP wrote:
| Well, for every raider on WoW there are multiple people
| who just mindlessly do stuff solo. Most players never
| even reach raiding.
| komali2 wrote:
| This was kinda me, I literally have never done a single
| raid in WoW despite absurd hours of /played. Still
| doesn't fit definition of parasocial but since we've
| diverted: that was the cool thing about WoW, you really
| could make it your own game back in the day (200...7? To
| about 2010ish). My buddies and I, irl and online-only,
| would spend our time chit chatting either in game or
| using VoIP software while flying around on the game's
| transit system, levelling alts. Or I would be sitting in
| a city getting into political debates on /2 (channel
| available across all cities for your faction when you're
| in a city).
|
| So it was still a very social game even if you weren't
| raiding. And the problem solving was very strong back
| then for the pvp scene, the concept of "meta" was still
| in it's infancy, I remember when one guy utterly changed
| the entire game of pvp with his pvp warrior videos, or
| another dude started publishing naked rogue gank videos.
| Anyway point is the social aspect was like any human
| society: incredibly diverse in form.
| austhrow743 wrote:
| Huh TIL. Never played WoW and everything I've heard about
| it has involved guilds and raiding with people. I didn't
| even know it was possible to play solo.
| BlueTemplar wrote:
| Yeah, after yet another "fetch 5 random organs" quest I
| gave up in disgust around level 20 (twice).
| throwing_away wrote:
| > 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.
|
| My job feels like way more of a "huge waste of time" than
| taking in new information via TikTok, socializing with friends
| in WoW, or watching the latest culturally relevant media.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| Yeah even as a kid I was never into video games. Just seemed
| like a waste of time. I rarely watch TV or movies now for the
| same reason. But what do I do instead? I find other ways to
| waste time like reading, other hobbies, browsing websites like
| this one. All activities with no external postive impact on
| anything. Just filling time.
| whatever1 wrote:
| Why is not not waste of life to read novels? Why is not waste
| of life to hike? Why is not waste of life to pursue hobbies?
|
| These are very subjective matters. And sometimes you are just
| exhausted and you only want to decompress without thinking.
| Watching TV, TikTok, aimlessly browse the internet are all
| great ways to do so.
| xwdv wrote:
| Try as we might, most of life will be a waste. There are only
| a few moments in life that we truly cherish and would not
| consider waste.
|
| Anything that is not bringing you closer to experiencing one
| of those moments is a waste. Spending more effort than what
| is necessary in pursuit of those moments might also be a
| waste, especially if the payoff isn't worth it.
|
| Therefore, you should setup your life so you can experience
| as many of those moments as possible. Money is the common
| tool of achieving a life of endless experiential
| opportunities. But it's not enough, you must also learn to
| greatly reduce or eliminate all responsibilities as well so
| you can live freely. You must be financially independent,
| location independent, and ideologically independent. Only
| then can you truly stop the waste of life.
|
| Some people are so bound to a time and place, a source of
| income, a way of thinking, that they will be lucky if they
| ever experience a single moment in life that is not a wasted.
| dancek wrote:
| That is quite a depressed take on life. Many people find
| all of life good. Why not set up your life so you can
| cherish every moment?
| xwdv wrote:
| Not possible.
| antisthenes wrote:
| The author was speaking for himself, so there's no
| contradiction there.
|
| If anyone wants to consider parts of their life a waste, let
| them do so, it's only their business.
| Spooky23 wrote:
| It's the type of engagement.
|
| Watch television geared towards old people or young children
| sometime. It's engineered to grab passive attention and the
| active content is ads.
|
| It's easy to see the effects on people. Little kids will go
| crazy to obtain some product. The older people face a more
| insidious marketing message - fear.
| [deleted]
| PeterisP wrote:
| The main idea I saw in that article is effectively an
| observation that if the older generation and younger generation
| disagree about what is proper and not, then the older
| generation currently gets to say that the younger generation is
| doing everything wrong and should be nudged towards proper (as
| elders understand it) ways, and the younger generation
| currently doesn't get to do the exact same thing in reverse.
| komali2 wrote:
| I think there's another question though, that of
| vulnerability to new techniques in social engineering. Leave
| aside the question of which is a greater "waste of life," TV
| or doom scrolling, and ask, which is actually causing more
| changes to your personality, values, maybe even your brain
| chemistry? Maybe both equally, but if that's the case I feel
| like many in the newer generation grew up with more tools to
| fight back.
|
| I don't know if this happened in previous generations with
| TV's, but I know among my friends there's a self
| consciousness about the bad feelings from what Instagram is
| doing to their mental health, and an active rejection: some
| quit entirely, some use the tools on their phones to limit
| app time, etc. I don't know if the previous generation has
| this or not.
|
| Or ads. I know very few people that just let ads run: we all
| either pay for premium services, or use ad blockers and pi
| holes to block ads. Meanwhile even though teevo is a thing I
| still know old people that just "let the ads run." It's
| ALWAYS a shock to me when I visit home and shown just how
| absurd the ratio of content : ads is for American television.
|
| Anyway it seems many in my generation are more aware of the
| threat of Algos latching onto you. I see comments all the
| time on YouTube mentioning it, "the Algo brought me here."
| But I don't ever hear older people talking about the previous
| version of that, the specialized social engineering and
| rhetorical techniques of entertainment companies like Fox
| News and their hosts such as Tucker Carlt. Their techniques
| of ragebait and leading questions seems blatant to me, as
| obvious as the slew of creepy ads that follow me around
| Facebook, Google, Instagram, or the "YouTube thumbnail" shit
| (everyone makes the same face), but I don't get much reaction
| when I try to bring this up with relatives.
|
| Basically I'm less interested in whether watching TV or doom
| scrolling is a waste of time, and more interested in whether
| it can literally program you lol. Like how many of us lost
| friends to qanon conspiracy holes due to effective Facebook
| engagement algorithms? Do you know relatives that became
| wickedly radical and racist in the last 4 years because they
| stopped hanging out and instead spent all their time first on
| mass media consumption and then weirder and weirder Twitter
| and Reddit clones? I do. How many times have you heard tucker
| Carlson quotes at Thanksgiving from people that used to have
| way more thoughts of their own?
|
| People may be able to say no one way of spending your time is
| better than another but I want to talk about what these
| various forms of media are doing to keep you hooked. Are we
| going to act like there's no danger here because we don't
| want to appear like elitists that say anything other than
| reading a book or programming is a waste of time?
| mindslight wrote:
| Bingo! We got our experience mainlining Internet conspiracy
| theories decades ago. Back when you had to keep them to
| yourself, because the sheer majority just wouldn't
| understand. Fuck, you couldn't even talk about how the
| Internet was heavily tapped by the US government until
| around 2012 or so, and that was abundantly clear from
| multiple whistleblowers!
|
| Boomers are going through that today, but since so many are
| doing at once it's pop culture. And instead of only weird
| "Internet friends" who could understand, it's the entirety
| of their real life social circle on Facebook. Then they
| turn on the "official" seeming Fox news, which has also
| been pwned, further cementing the nonsense.
| golemiprague wrote:
| HappySweeney wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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!
| godelski wrote:
| Yeah there's definitely different types of shows. Just like
| there's different types of books. There are some shows and
| movies that have deep philosophy to them and you can spend
| hours, days, or weeks mulling over and discussing. The same
| is with books. There are also plenty of trash novels that
| are purely for entertainment. Is there a difference between
| that and your standard mindless sitcom? Probably not. But
| we also shouldn't paint with too wide of a brush or we're
| closing ourselves off to a potentially powerful form of
| art, expression, and even a method of learning.
|
| I also think there is nothing wrong with purely engaging in
| entertainment. But this is an issue when it gets addictive
| and becomes too much. We need to be nuanced about these
| discussions rather than being so judgemental and putting
| our own perspectives as the higher status. That's just
| stroking our own egos and that's similarly not healthy nor
| beneficial to society as a whole.
| standardUser wrote:
| 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.
| gregmac wrote:
| Another big difference is the way we consume. "Watching
| TV" used to mean watching whatever was on in the current
| timeslot, which often meant flipping through channels
| until you found the least-bad thing you could tolerate.
|
| In the last 10-15 years that style has all but
| disappeared* and been replaced with Netflix-style
| services (and maybe PVRs for sports fans and 60+), where
| you don't watch "TV" but watch "a show".
|
| Browsing tiktok or YouTube might be the closest thing
| that people still do to channel flipping, but since it's
| customized and endless, there's never a need to settle
| for the "least-worst" thing you can find.
|
| (* I'm sure there are people that still do this, but I'm
| saying this based on my circle of close family/friends,
| many of whom are non-technical).
| standardUser wrote:
| Strongly agree with all of that. When I hear people
| complain online about all the different streaming
| services, I assume they're very young and didn't have to
| suffer through "appointment viewing" and "channel
| flipping" and watching "whatever's on". And a third of it
| all was commercials.
|
| The fact that many people still watch TV that way baffles
| me.
| dlivingston wrote:
| Have you watched Severance on Apple TV+ yet? It's so
| good, and thick with symbolism and dual-meanings.
| wobbly_bush wrote:
| Not the person you are responding to - I agree with you that
| recreation is important. I think we should be talking more
| about how to do recreational activities that feel beneficial
| down the line. Or are recreation and being beneficial
| mutually exclusive? Overall, it feels harder to do beneficial
| recreational activities.
| [deleted]
| datavirtue wrote:
| 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.
| NaturalPhallacy wrote:
| This is fair. My boomer dad is almost never not watching TV...
| gus_massa wrote:
| 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.
| patall wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| To be fair, at age 80, doom is probably fairly imminent.
| WorkerBee28474 wrote:
| While the average lifespan (American stats) is about 79, if
| someone makes it to 80 their average lifespan is 88.
| pneumic wrote:
| 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)
| bakugo wrote:
| I like how you had to clarify that your parents hate Trump
| because other commenters immediately assumed they liked him,
| even though 90% of attention Trump gets is from people who
| dedicate most of their headspace to hating him.
| freedomben wrote:
| Extreme risk of getting off-topic, but I've been really
| wondering what Trump fans think of Trump's announcement of
| candidacy in 2024 and it's nearly impossible to ask people
| nowadays. Are your parents generally positive or negative on
| it? Did they like DeSantis last week and now think he needs
| to stay in Florida?
| pneumic wrote:
| Sorry, what I mean is that they are obsessed with hating
| Trump.
| MaxfordAndSons wrote:
| I think GP meant their parent's are anti-Trump. Mine are as
| well, but ironically, during Trumps rise and presidency, I
| noticed them starting to act quite like mirror images of
| (what I imagine to be) their Fox watching right wing peers
| - driven to nightly flights of righteous indignation by
| MSNBC or CNN, increasingly conspiracy minded and less
| concerned with non-political news/life.
| pneumic wrote:
| Exactly matches my experience.
| mitchdoogle wrote:
| I can't imagine trump fans being anything except positive
| about him running again. Why would they even be negative?
| mathlover2 wrote:
| Sorry to hear that.
| pneumic wrote:
| Sorry, what I mean is that they are obsessed with hating
| Trump. Countless hours devoted to hanging on to and getting
| worked up over every bit of information about a guy they
| despise.
| dylan604 wrote:
| It could be the opposite of what your 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 wrote:
| Yeah, that's what I meant, wish I was clearer.
| [deleted]
| rsynnott wrote:
| I expect consiracy-based TV shows are also available. Though
| possibly not to the same degree of nonsense you get on the
| internet, I suppose.
| folmar wrote:
| You can start with Ancient Aliens if you'd like.
| xnx wrote:
| Fox News is close to a conspiracy-based channel.
| speakfreely wrote:
| Not completely wrong, but I feel like they've retreated
| towards the center in recent years as the more far-right
| channels took over. Fox News has generally been less than
| enthusiastically MAGA and focused on the traditional
| conservative talking points: culture wars, border crisis,
| etc. with resistance to things like election denial, Trump
| worship, etc. (commentators like Carlson and Hannity not
| included in this assessment, of course)
| ceejayoz wrote:
| I'm not sure how you could talk about Fox News without
| including Carlson and Hannity.
| dredmorbius wrote:
| 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>
|
| You can find a contemporaneous interview of Minnow by Studs
| Terkel here:
|
| https://studsterkel.wfmt.com/programs/newton-minow-discusses...
|
| And a recent (2021) take here:
|
| <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_Elimina...>
|
| Internet Archive:
| <https://archive.org/details/fourargumentsfor00mand_0>
|
| LibGen:
| <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-
| 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/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.
| fleddr wrote:
| 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.
| hn_throwaway_99 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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.
| randcraw wrote:
| 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.
| thenerdhead wrote:
| What if we just talked about moderation in all things and kept to
| ourselves?
| nonrandomstring wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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.
| bell-cot wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| That's a good point, I also do this as it brings some amount of
| comfort vs being alone with complete silence.
| NoraCodes wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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.
| mradek wrote:
| 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.
| spoonjim wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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?
| MaxfordAndSons wrote:
| 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.
| mathlover2 wrote:
| 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.)
| FPGAhacker wrote:
| 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.
| medvezhenok wrote:
| And yet, society advances as people holding backward views die
| off (not actually from people changing their minds). Has always
| been that way and always will be. If people lived twice as long
| you could imagine that inequality would be at least twice as
| bad and that society's views would evolve slower than they do
| today.
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| tomcam wrote:
| Yeah I'm in my 60s and... not too impressed by the supposed
| wisdom of my fellow Boomers.
| this_is_for_you wrote:
| 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.
| BlueTemplar wrote:
| Hopefully you start noticing this by your 30s ?
|
| Though supposedly it hits diminishing returns soon after
| that..?
|
| And I don't want to spend my life constantly regretting choices
| made a few years before !
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