Understanding Attention

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Your parents may seem as phone-absorbed as your teenagers, but their needs and motivations are different.

Social media exploits human attention across the lifespan.

Technology can help older adults maintain social connection and belonging when offline worlds get smaller.

For decades, parents have been telling teenagers to get off their phones.

Lately, though, frustrated adults on Reddit have started calling their parents the new “iPad kids” because their parents are now just as likely as their teens to scroll through social media during family gatherings, watch endless YouTube videos, or disappear into political and health-related rabbit holes.

It’s tempting to take these reports as evidence that we should extend the same worries we have about kids and technology to older adults. Some adult children who already feel responsible for managing their kids’ technology use now feel like they have to police their parents, too.

What Does the Data Say?

The data tell a different story. Yes, older adults are adopting technology fast. Smartphone ownership among adults over age 50 rose from 55% in 2016 to 90% in 2025 (Kakulla, 2026). But adoption isn’t the same as compulsion.

Just like with teens, not all screen time is equal. When researchers measure problematic internet use, older adults generally score lower than younger adults (Devine et al., 2022). For older adults, sitting around watching television is associated with poorer mental health than other types of screen use (Silva Santos et al., 2026). By contrast, older adults who use technology report being more socially engaged (Lee et al., 2026).

None of this makes it any less frustrating when your parents are glued to their devices while they are supposed to be spending time with you or your kids.

Why Grandma Keeps Scrolling

Getting sucked into perpetual scrolling is a human attention problem, not an aging problem. Infinite scroll, autoplay, notifications, and algorithmic recommendations eliminate natural stopping points and continually offer something new. Those mechanisms work across the lifespan.

There are, however, age-specific changes like retirement, which can suddenly remove the structure that organized........

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