‘My dad’s screen time is higher than mine’: Indian woman on rising phone addiction among older adults

For years, older adults have whined about young people’s phone usage. Most youngsters have grown up hearing remarks like, “They’re always glued to their phones,” “They scroll endlessly through social media,” and “They’re completely detached from society.

” But now, the narrative is beginning to shift. Older adults are finally obsessed with their phones.

The narrative is changing

Janhavi Jain, a marketing professional from India, recently shared how her parents’ phone addiction is starting to worry her. “The most underreported addiction crisis in India is parents and their phones, and I’m being completely serious. My dad’s screen time is higher than mine. He watches reels at full volume during dinner.

Not on Instagram. On Facebook. He hasn’t discovered YouTube Shorts yet, and honestly, I’m terrified for the day he does,” the woman wrote on X (formerly Twitter).The woman spoke about how her dad is focused on playing card games on his phone. “He forwards updates to what I can only assume is every person he’s ever met. He’s in WhatsApp groups I didn’t know existed, having debates with people from his work about things that happened in 1999.”

The young woman added that things are no different with her mum. “My mum is in 14 WhatsApp groups. She reconnected with her college friends and school alumni through WhatsApp — women she hadn’t spoken to in 30 years. That part is genuinely beautiful. The less beautiful part is that she plays Candy Crush with so much dedication. She scrolls reels on Facebook and shows me every third one, saying ‘ye dekh kitna funny hai’, and it’s a reel I saw three weeks ago.

I smile every time. She sends it anyway.”

Roles reversed

The woman also expressed that the generational irony is impossible to ignore. She grew up hearing lectures about how phone and computer screen time could affect eye health, but now roles are reversed. “Now I’m the one saying ‘papa, phone rakh do, so jao’, and he does the exact same dismissive hand wave I used to do at 15. Same wave. Same energy,” Jain said.

Why the digital upgrade may be dangerous for older adults

The woman also explained the hidden dangers behind the rising phone addiction among older adults.

Unlike younger generations, who grew up gradually adapting to the internet, older adults discovered unlimited entertainment suddenly and without protective barriers.“The thing is, they never built immunity to it. Our generation grew up with the internet. We learned to doomscroll and feel guilty about it. We have the ‘I should put my phone down’ instinct, even if we don’t follow it. They discovered unlimited entertainment at 55 with zero guilt, zero screen-time awareness, and zero concept of doomscrolling.

They just went all in. My dad and his card games. My mum and her Candy Crush. Both of them and their Facebook reels that they share on WhatsApp,” she said.

She added why conversation about this pressing issue is important. “The screen-time conversation completely flipped in one generation, and the kids became the parents. Nobody is ready for this conversation, but every person reading this just thought of their own mum or dad.”