It’s a chilly December evening in Delhi. My boyfriend of four years and I have flown in from Bengaluru to introduce him to my maternal grandparents. Minutes in, all classic small talk about weather, flight duration, and traffic has been exhausted. The tension hangs heavy in the air, and from the corner of my eye I can see my grandfather shooting daggers at my partner, the latter shifting uncomfortably in his chair, waiting for the sky to open up and swallow him whole.
Amidst this chaos, there’s only one sound cutting the silence. My 55-year-old father—strategically brought in to ease conversation—is seated at the centre of the room, completely enraptured by his phone screen. Instagram reels, which range from the Indian cricket team’s favourite mithai to an animal attacking a village somewhere in India, play on full blast as my dad remains shockingly oblivious to the drama unfolding around him IRL. Somehow, the mindless scroll was so fascinating that it erased all memory of his impending mediator duties.
Back home, my paternal grandfather watches two Bollywood movies a day to keep himself occupied. Anytime I’m about to travel, his first question isn’t where, with whom or how long, but “who will switch on my laptop when you’re away?”. Surely, you get my drift.
But this entire argument isn’t a case of what-about-me-ism; and my sample size is not limited to my family. I come equipped with an arsenal of data and examples. A 2025 report shows that adults over 65 now watch YouTube twice as much as they did two years ago. Another study reveals that, on average, people aged 55 and above spend nearly four to five hours in front of a screen.
Nicole Vaz, a Bengaluru-based engineer, attests to this phenomenon. “Being in the house with my 82-year-old mother and my seven-year-old son is like consuming stimulus on steroids. They both get cranky without the iPad and they both have no volume control,” she says.
For years, we have tsk-tsked at children’s skyrocketing screen times. Parents have been side-eyed for raising iPad babies and schools shamed for teaching on screen. As of December last year, Australia banned under-16s from using social media, while several countries, including France, Spain and South Korea, are discussing the same. Countless educational institutes worldwide have banned phones on premises, while academics decry tech as the end of an innocent childhood.
In many ways, it is boomers that have led this no-phone charge. They ramble on about how in their days kids would climb trees to pluck mangoes and return home with bruised knees, not tired thumbs. Ironically, now the same demographic is prey to the feigned charm of short-form content.
To make matters worse, a lot of the 30-second videos they consume meet the criteria typically held for unassuming kids. Just as Cocomelon and Blippi utilise rapid cuts, colourful action, and zany humour to lure in toddlers, Instagram Reels and YouTube Shorts targeted at older viewers lead with the same formulas that reduce attention spans.
Brief but high bursts of dopamine eventually train their brain for the same, making long, focused concentration and conversation harder to retain. This impatience can also cause mood swings. Devansh Arora, a Mumbai-based professor, has witnessed this shift with his father. “I can see his urge to just open Facebook or Instagram quickly even when we’re having meals or in conversation… Suddenly, what’s on the screen is more exciting; the rest doesn’t hold his attention.”
No matter where an elder’s interest lies, on the big bad worldwide web there really is something for everyone. Instructional videos on how to boil your milk right or why peas are bad for you, financial advice on the one investing mistake we all make, fear-pilled videos that urge you to drop four hearts for good luck or share if you love your country, wife jokes, husband jokes, ‘Gen Z are so sensitive’ jokes, ‘minorities suck and they are ruining our country’ jokes—it’s all here and it’s hard to resist.
Very often, this screen addiction creeps up on older adults through seemingly healthy starts. “My father started carrying his phone everywhere because he wanted to track his daily 10k steps. Now it’s become an extension of his arm,” shares Arora.
Similarly, Vasundhara Reddy traces her 64-year-old mother’s iPad addiction back to the pandemic. “During Covid, doctors suggested older people should play word games to keep their minds active. It started with NYT and LA Times crosswords and now it’s shady priests giving advice on Instagram or watching fear-mongering thrillers on YouTube,” she explains.
For Reddy, a strategist based in Delhi, the trickiest part is her mother’s denial of the growing screen obsession. “Her response is what I used to say in college when she got mad about my phone usage: I’m a grown woman, I know what I’m doing, leave me alone,” she says. The negation is also an all too familiar feeling; it’s likely we’ve all been called out only to scream and shout about how it’s so normal to use your phone for six-plus hours. (Don’t deny it!)
Unlike teenagers who have parents and teachers as guardrails, and school and hobbies as schedule blockers, retired generations often have an abundance of time and, more integrally, free will on their side. It doesn’t help that tech companies are actively targeting the elderly. In 2024, Apple launched AirPods Pro that double as over-the-counter hearing aids. UI designers have also reported gamifying health tasks in an attempt to pull older users into routine engagement.
Additionally, the fluidity of the internet, the rise of fake news, and undetectable AI make the elderly more susceptible to landing on scams or believing slop as gospel. (Cybercrimes targeting senior citizens have risen by 86 per cent in recent years.) Then there’s the undeniable health conversation: increased screen time can impact sleep, sight, hearing, and cause anxiety.
But there are caveats. While all the harm is true, it would be equally unfair to paint rising screen usage with one broad negative brushstroke. As a Gen Z writer who has been accused of spending too much time online and who makes a living off it, I would never dare to say screens are all bad.
At 82, Shallot Vaz sees YouTube as an easy fix to the emptiness of her day. “I used to be a lawyer; I struggled to find time to wash my hair. Now I have hours… The videos keep my mind active, they have lots of twists and turns,” she shares. As you can guess, Shallot watches thrillers aplenty, often broken into several micro episodes on Shorts. However, she claims her favourite content is the Catholic Holy Mass live every evening: “I like knowing that many people are watching it at the same time. It makes the world feel smaller.”
For many older individuals struggling from the collapse of multi-generational housing and the erasure of suitable third spaces, phones have become a tool to keep isolation at bay. After all, 47 per cent of Indian elders associate ageing with loneliness, and a smartphone, for all its faults, has a magical quality of bringing you closer to the world. “Sometimes I think my mother [keeps] YouTube switched on just to avoid the silence,” says Vaz.
For many seniors, screens become the key to the outside: whether it is FaceTiming the grandchild who lives in another country, forwarding festival messages, or just staying in touch with immediate family. The phone becomes a source of stability and safety.
Ask 71-year-old Alok Mahajan, whose daily average screen time approaches eight hours. The retired banker, though, denies any obsession. “I am not addicted to my phone any more than the next person,” he says flatly. Like the family members who send a new “good day” poster every morning, Mahajan is famous on his group chats for sharing inspiring quotes of the day. “Sometimes people reply, sometimes they’re busy, but it’s a good way to stay connected,” he tells me. Having undergone a knee surgery recently, his movement is restricted, allowing him more time for online chess and ludo matches, a favourite childhood pastime of his.
A study in The Guardian also found that older people who use smartphones show lower rates of cognitive decline. Of course, much like anything in life, striking a balance is just as important here. Even if you’re struggling to reduce the amount of time an older person spends on their screen, maybe you can focus on altering what they consume instead.
Lower stimulus, slower plot lines, softer ideas, banning certain triggering words or emotions on their social media are all helpful. As is creating opportunity for IRL interaction. With cosy crafts back in full swing, maybe your grandparent will enjoy a crochet circle in the park. For all you know, the housing community has an existing senior citizen crew that they can join in. A good old laughing club does wonders, too.
Yep, their screen time can worry you, but don’t jump in with a list of strong instructions; gently steer them away from the phone reliance. We have all been victim to Parenting 101 and the claws of reverse psychology. Remember when your folks would convince you that something whack and healthy was actually your idea? Sprinkle some of that harmless manipulation here. You know you got this.
