No AI was used to write this article.
One of my first memories of phones comes from the late 90s. My cousin, who was a few years older, had just bought a phone. Not just any phone… It was a brand-new Nokia with Snake on it!
Five or six of us were gathered around him as he was breaking records. The snake was getting longer each time it consumed another pixel. I will never forget the day he won the game! His whole screen was covered with a pixelated snake. After what felt like hours of effort, he finally achieved the impossible. I’m still impressed to this day.
Adults were not happy about it though. Every few minutes or so, we were told we should play outside.
Teenagers glued to their smartphones
The world of phones has evolved a lot since the days of Snake. Phones turned into smartphones. Smartphones turned into something that’s increasingly difficult to put down. For many of us, phone use became a gambling-like experience: clicking between different apps and getting caught in endless scrolling loops. Yet for a long time, it felt as though this was purely a problem for the younger generation.
Things were different in the past. Young people very quickly learned to use phones for networking, texting, browsing and distraction. But early phones didn’t offer much to older generations beyond being a practical tool for calls. They would repeat things like: “Kids these days just stare at screens. They’re missing real life”
Teenagers used to spend hours glued to their phones. Parents and grandparents used to complain about it. That was the status quo.
Only recently did I realise this is no longer true.
When did grandparents start doomscrolling?
You only need to look around to see that older people can struggle with the compulsive side of smartphones too. Some scroll through random Facebook videos whilst their grandchildren play. Some people in their sixties or seventies spend hours playing mobile games or watching staged videos, while real life continues around them.
Some of the same people who were telling us to “play outside” got sucked in too. No generation was spared!
How did this happen?
It’s hard to capture the exact moment this happened because it was gradual. The same device that was used to make simple phone calls gradually offered more options: family photographs, news, contact with grandchildren and online shopping.
How they got pulled in
It’s hard to become hooked on something you’ve never interacted with. I think that was often the case for older generation. They hadn’t had as much direct contact with smartphones, so it was easy to dismiss them or even judge those who used them.
However, as the world became more digital, older people were often forced to use them or simply started using them for convenience. Banking apps. Video calls. WhatsApp. Maps. Smartphones became useful tools.
But to use these tools, you need to own a device that’s capable of much more than that.
It was only a matter of time before an app designed to hold attention also captured their attention. Some of the same people who warned us about the dangers of believing everything we see online are now emotionally invested in staged pranks labelled “This restored my faith in humanity”.
If you had shown them this future twenty years ago, they would never have believed you.
Are your excuses better than theirs?
The devices we use are the same. The content is different. Judging other people’s phone use can make us feel better about our own problem.
If you notice another person playing a game that seems pointless or watching a ridiculous video, you may think to yourself, “What’s happened to this world?”.
But a few minutes later, you may be doing it yourself. The difference is that you think you have a good excuse. You tell yourself: My job is important, so it’s okay to check my email at 10pm. I am stuck in a queue so it’s okay to distract. I am tired and I deserve a little break.
We’re in this together. We just don’t see each other’s excuses. That’s why other people’s phone use seems worse than ours. It is as if your phone use is somehow more productive than theirs. But is there much difference between watching funny cat videos and reopening the email app for the twentieth time today?
Growing up with technology
Sometimes I wonder whether growing up as a millennial, while technology gradually improved around me, was actually an advantage. I was part of the generation that grew up before smartphones and then gradually learned to use them. Each new tool, app or trick that was invented appeared right in front of us. I had time to adapt.
Don’t get me wrong, this doesn’t make phones less addictive for us. But sometimes it feels as though we may have had one advantage. We had time to adjust to the gradual rise of features designed to hold our attention. I recently wrote a post about Instagram and how taking a break from it for eight years helped me notice all the new attention-grabbing features it had introduced. If I had been asked to use it for the first time without any past experience, navigating its tricks would have been much harder.
Different generations, different vulnerabilities
Is the older generation more gullible? I don’t think so, and I hope this post doesn’t get interpreted as a judgement of older people. I think we’re all in this together. I don’t think many of us currently manage our phones particularly well.
My impression is that many younger people are more familiar with the tricks apps use to compete for our attention. That familiarity does not necessarily make the tricks any easier to resist. Some older users may be encountering these tricks for the first time.
The content that catches one generation’s attention can also look questionable to another. This might include videos captioned “You won’t believe what happens at the end”, staged pranks, cat videos, fake science, endless tutorials, gossip, ragebait, clickbait and so on. Each generation has its own equally questionable feed. Same phones, same tricks, same issues… but different content.
No Generation Was Ready
No generation entered the world fully prepared for what smartphones would come to offer. Different generations entered at different points.
Millennials were kind of given a gradual introduction. But previous generations discovered smartphones when the technology was already extremely advanced. On the other hand, the next generation (Gen Z, anyone?) grew up with highly advanced technology as part of normal daily life.
It was as if only one generation was given the opportunity to make sense of this. The others entered it blindly. No warm-up, no explanation… just straight into it when it was already at its most intense.
If you can’t swim, it’s not ideal to be thrown in at the deep end.
Final words
What once seemed like a problem affecting young people now touches every generation. I don’t think any person or generation can be blamed for it. This is simply evidence of how powerful these devices are. Judging other people’s phone use is easy, but the truth is that we’re all in this together.
The same people who warned us about the dangers of phones may never have seen themselves as needing the same warning. They didn’t know what they were signing up for.
Compulsive phone use is difficult to resist. But let’s not look down on each other. The best thing we can do is set an example ourselves. Next time someone reaches for a phone in front of you, is judging them really the best option? Or could you resist reaching for yours as well?
What if, instead, you simply absorbed the life around you? Who knows? Maybe at some point they would join you.
Thank you for spending a few minutes here.
Now, back to the life happening around you :)
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An interesting read Kuba. How times have changed! I do miss the days before social media took off and smart phones became a thing!
Really interesting observation. As you say, we are all caught in this. I sometimes wonder whether fatigue has a hidden role to play. In my 40s, I'm most vulnerable to falling into the phone when I'm tired. In your 70s and 80s, your brain is tired just that bit more perhaps.