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“Yeah, you youngsters spend way too much time scrolling,” your parent exclaims, sitting hunched over their iPad, glasses at the end of their nose as they share a post of a cat missing in Los Angeles to their Facebook timeline, despite the fact that they live in Leeds.
“I’m nowhere near as bad as you,” they add, as they go into their 75th minute of not looking up from their screen despite the fact you’ve come to visit them. “Did you know that Brian I went to school with and haven’t seen since and who is of absolutely zero significance to any of us was on holiday in Florence last week? Difficult for some.”
Sound familiar? Well, you might just have yourself an iPad parent.
Let us explain.
Chances are you’ve heard the term ‘iPad kid’ – a condescending phrase used to describe screen-loving Gen Alpha children (people who were born from 2010, the year Apple iPads were first available to the public) who are quite simply never not staring at an electronic device.
And despite our boomer parents being the first to use this term and criticise how much children are allowed to stare at handheld devices all day (hell hath no fury like a Mumsnet user who has seen children at a restaurant table on iPads), it might actually be them that we need to worry about.
In a now viral video from TikTok creator Trevor Abney discussed this oh-too-familiar experience sharing: “I know the joke on the internet is about how bad ‘iPad kids’ are.. but ‘iPad moms’ have got to be the worst phenomenon in the world and nobody talks about it.”
@itstrevorabney
“The craziest part is that this is a 60-year-old woman sitting on an iPad,” he adds. “If you try to talk to her, she just doesn’t respond.”
And judging from the video’s now whopping 295k likes and almost 9000 comments, if you find yourself wanting to hurl your parent’s phone or tablet across the room so that they’ll hold a conversation with you without them going for a high score on Candy Crush, you’re far from alone.
“It absolutely does my head in,” 29-year-old Emma* tells HuffPost UK. “I go to visit my parents and stay a couple of nights and the second we sit down after dinner they’re both on their phones scrolling through Facebook in silence. Like, what’s the point in me coming to visit? Clearly whatever’s going on on their phones is more important.”
It’s something 32-year-old Shona* relates to. “My parents give absolutely zero fucks about scrolling in company. We’ll all go for dinner and they’ll have their phones out at the table until the food is put down, despite myself and my siblings not doing so – god forbid any of us dared to do the same though, then we’d know all about it.”
So why exactly does this happen? Is it just as simple as our parents being rude?
Well, yes and no. Scrolling on your phone while in company is inherently rude, so much so that there’s a word for it – phubbing.
But why our parents don’t seem to notice it as an issue is a whole other matter.
According to Riani Keyon, Anthropologist and Behavioural Analyst at Canvas8, we first need to look at what makes sites like Facebook so appealing to boomers (apart from the obvious argument of dopamine social media hits) to understand why they don’t see what they’re doing as rude.
“Boomers’ fondness for Facebook can be explained by a combination of psychological, social, and technological factors that resonate with their unique generational experiences,” she explains.
“Boomers often use Facebook to share life updates, photos (using albums as digital records and reminders of their experiences in life), and milestones, reinforcing a sense of community and belonging. This aligns with the generational value placed on maintaining long-term relationships and the nostalgia of revisiting past experiences.”
Well, that certainly makes sense about browsing Brian from school’s holiday pictures, despite them seeming totally meaningless to us.
Maybe you have a parent who can’t stop commenting on every single post they see on Facebook – like 35-year-old Nathan’s* mum. “Is it totally necessary to try and leave a silly comment on every single post she sees on Facebook? It’s clearly for likes,” he tells HuffPost UK.
As it turns out, yes it is for likes – but it’s not quite straightforward as you’d think.
“Boomers often find validation in the likes, comments, and shares that they receive on posts. As social media research highlights, people use platforms like Facebook not just for entertainment but to seek validation and a sense of belonging,” Keyon tells us.
“For boomers, many of whom may feel increasingly disconnected in a rapidly changing world, these interactions are rewarding and provide an avenue to feel relevant and connected.”
The need to still be relevant in an ever-changing world
The idea that your poor parent might just be trying to feel relevant via doom scrolling is something Dr. Daniel Glazer, a Clinical Psychologist at US Therapy Rooms agrees with – and trust us when we say that you might want to buckle up for this one.
He explains: “Having incrementally departed from core roles like professional identities or active parents, boomer parents subconsciously crave renewed access to pathways for personal validation and belonging. The parade of benign life updates from their expansive social networks can provide comforting reassurance that their lived experiences still carry substance and their enduring social bonds hold profound resonance.”
Bet you’re suddenly feeling a little bit bad now, aren’t ya
“In that light, friending former classmates or colleagues allows reinvigorating old identity anchors during transitory phases. And prominently sharing grandchild photos proclaims coveted new personas as beloved patriarchs/matriarchs. Each scroll reaffirms facets of their self-concepts and weaves their evolving narratives into the broader social fabric. It’s an all-too-human impulse as the landscape of their lives continues to change,” he adds.
Oh good – our parents are struggling to feel relevant as they age and are trying to find some form of identity amongst the noise and we’ve been berating them for trying to do so.
Okay, okay, before we get the pity party in full swing, it’s worth pointing out that this deep-rooted desire to feel seen, valued, and connected within a community isn’t always positive.
“When taken to unhealthy extremes, Facebook’s artificial sense of closeness can become a mental health risk – especially for those already dealing with loneliness, memory issues, or the stress of caring for others,” Glazer tells HuffPost UK. “The endless stream of posts can become a numbing, almost addictive comfort as older users fall into compulsive scrolling patterns, constantly seeking approval and validation from others.”
And in a lot of our cases, they also end up ignoring the people around them (see: EVEN THEIR OWN FAMILY) in pursuit of this comfort.
We know that too much social media is bad for us and that social media is designed to get people hooked in the first place, but we’ve grown up being taught this – you only have to look at the never ending headlines about digital detoxes and tips to stay off your phone to know we’re cottoning on to our habits. But who is there telling our parents that they need to back tf off from their phone once in a while?
So now for the tricky bit – how can we have a conversation with our iPad parents about their incessant scrolling?
Anyone with a parent who is deeply attached to their scrolling will tell you that if you dare to pass comments on their behaviour, expect defensiveness to hit you like a tonne of bricks.
To tackle the hell that is trying to comment on your parents’ behaviour, we turned to psychotherapist Melinda Messenger for help.
“A gentle way would be to say ‘look, I noticed that when we come and want to spend time with you, that you’re on your phone a lot and I know that that can be really appealing, but we really just want to be able to spend some time with you,’” she suggests.
Yes, we know there’s the temptation to be as blunt to our parents as they can be to us, but we’re trying to be the more mature adult here, okay?
And instead of giving your parent space to get overly defensive, Messenger suggests immediately offering an alternative to the current doom scrolling situation.
“Ask them, ‘is there any way that we could perhaps just have a set amount of time where we don’t check our phones, don’t look at our phones so that we can enjoy each other’s company as that would mean a lot to me.’ Have a conversation about what you would like your boundaries to be. Do you agree to switch your phone off? Do we agree to no phone time when we’re in each other’s company? It’s having that kind of conversation as opposed to criticism.”
Meanwhile, Dr Catherine Carney, Psychiatrist at Delamere recommends following this five part method to intervene safely without shaming your parents’ behaviour.
● Gather information first – monitor how often you see your loved one in front of a screen, where this happens, and their mood. This will influence the way you talk to them.
● Ask open-ended questions – check-in on how they’re feeling, ask open-ended questions to get free-form responses where the person can feel encouraged to express more openly in their own words.
● Reserve judgement – talk to learn and understand, not to make a point or to encourage an action from it.
● Talking about their mental health, and not specifically about the screen use – addictive behaviour like excessive screen use is usually rooted in mental health issues. To avoid the family member feeling like they are being called out for a specific action or behaviour, checking-in on their mental health is more likely to be received well.
● Take notes of your conversation – this will help future conversations, and if you are to discuss this case to a professional. At Delamere, we offer family interventions where we work closely with the family and involve the family in the whole intervention process. This can be conducted at home.
And if in doubt? We recommend hiding the charger.
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