I was on vacation with my girlfriend and we met up with her parents abd went to dinner with some of their friends. All in their late 60es early 70es. Me and my girlfriend are around 40 and the kids 5 to 8. The children aren’t really alliwed on their phones and i thought it was rather rude to hang on my phone. Then i saw these elderly people either playimg candy crush or something similar or asking their phone 20 timea in a row how long the coastline in italy was, or similar questions. It was way too loud for chatgpt or Gemini or whatever to pick anything up, so they just kept asking. It was quite bizzare to me, because 30 years ago, i would’ve been the kid on a gameboy and people their age would tell me that it’s bad and rude.
Parents and grandparents are more isolated than they ever been, and have lost social skills along with the rest of societies where phones own the users rather than the other way around. People are lonely everywhere and old folks struggle with this in many industrialized societies. No one is around to tell the older folks how they look, that it’s strange and uncomfortable, and many don’t have grandchildren now to help them see what else is out there in life. Young people need older folks around and both groups benefit as do parental-age people from this historic arrangement. It’s fucking tragic, like watching the death of a species…and that’s before you bring the environment into it.
I was on vacation with my girlfriend and we met up with her parents abd went to dinner with some of their friends. All in their late 60es early 70es. Me and my girlfriend are around 40 and the kids 5 to 8. The children aren’t really alliwed on their phones and i thought it was rather rude to hang on my phone. Then i saw these elderly people either playimg candy crush or something similar or asking their phone 20 timea in a row how long the coastline in italy was, or similar questions. It was way too loud for chatgpt or Gemini or whatever to pick anything up, so they just kept asking. It was quite bizzare to me, because 30 years ago, i would’ve been the kid on a gameboy and people their age would tell me that it’s bad and rude.
Parents and grandparents are more isolated than they ever been, and have lost social skills along with the rest of societies where phones own the users rather than the other way around. People are lonely everywhere and old folks struggle with this in many industrialized societies. No one is around to tell the older folks how they look, that it’s strange and uncomfortable, and many don’t have grandchildren now to help them see what else is out there in life. Young people need older folks around and both groups benefit as do parental-age people from this historic arrangement. It’s fucking tragic, like watching the death of a species…and that’s before you bring the environment into it.