To play devil’s advocate; being on your phone is an isolating activity, while watching the TV is generally more communal, and was so especially in the era in which they’ve spent the most time.
Millenials and most Gen Z have shows that everyone watched growing up, but that’s going away increasingly, with on-demand streaming and customized feeds replacing the latter. I think it’s a very obvious culprit of why young people today struggle to talk to one another.
I am Gen Z.
This. For better or worse people would gather to watch a show at a particular time and day. It often turned into much more of a social event than a let’s watch this show event. A thirty minute show was a several hour gathering of people. Laughing, eating, having a good time.
You cannot replicate that using a phone.
And you could talk about it the next day with your friends in school.
A lot less choice and everyone watched the same things.
The experience can only be compared to a football final these days.
Honestly, I’ve kinda grown to hate these phones, yet I find myself constantly going back like it’s a digital addiction. Compared to entertainment media prior to these horror pocketbricks, seemingly everything had more novelty. TV/Movie nights were special and shared with family, and man it was always fun picking out what CD to pop into the player. Gaming sessions were entertaining because my brother would join, and we’d have a couch party with a GameCube, or even a Nintendo DS with a multiplayer game. He was such a screenpeeker.
It plagues me that the more I think on it, I truly dont feel it’s nostalgia, there seems to be a lost novelty, and the phone and internet largely seemed to replace it all. Now, couch parties are had as a Discord call, movie nights are supplemented with a customized YouTube feed. Even the era of personal websites are fading away.
On a side note, all those things are possible for us to have today, yet we don’t. It feels like a conscious decision to pursue convenience over connection, but why did we pick this path?
Millennial here, I got (and sometimes still get) my fair-share of bashing for spending way too much time on the computer. Some were concerned that I will be unable to talk with other people about the series currently running on the TV (!), although early on they mourned the “football star” I was supposed to become, with my late stepmother not really giving up on that until she thought instead I could be the next Zuckerberg (TL;DR: she originally hated computers because they crashed and she also read an article on the Columbine shooting once, but changed her mind once Facebook came out).
I’ve just never been able to connect with people, by talking inanely about reality shows or football. Woe is me.
My boomer parents are looking at two screens 24/7. Either TV + tablet or tablet + phone or tv + tablet
Bonus points when I call them and they don’t answer because they say they didn’t have their phone with them
I swear to god, same parent telling me I’d pop my eyes out for playing aoe 2 for 6 hours non stop, watches 2 screens non stop. I honestly don’t even get, if you’re not watching the news, why is it on? If you’re playing solitaire, fine do it, it engages brain, but then why did you buy 400 hint bundle. When I wanted a better bike for my local race, it was cheating (real reason was affordability, which was valid). But then playing solitaire with hint isn’t?
And then they wonder why I don’t value their opinion, what did they do wrong?
Are you my sibling?!
Older people can be just as bad as young ones about phone addiction and poor habits let alone manners
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.
My mother was constantly on her phone playing games or scrolling social media/TikTok/YouTube. Even when her favorite shows were on she barely paid any attention.
My mom used to knit during shows, and either miss a plot point, or lose count of a stitch and have to unravel stuff.
For movies, she was notorious for falling asleep and getting upset that we finished watching it anyway.
Lol my grandma had phone additiction long before smart phones. Watching TV before steaming really sucked with her in room.
My grandma is addicted to porn on her phone she just constantly goons.
You walk into her room at the nursing house and her fingers are wrinkly like she just got out of the bath and it smells like day old tuna salad.
grandpa must have had great time or worst time.
I’m GenX and I honestly can’t stand to watch ads anymore, they’re all so stupid and I feel like I’ve put in my damn time already with the ads. I suppose that’s why most ads are aimed at younger people until they want to start selling you catheters.
millennial here, I absolutely hate ads with such a passion that I will go very far out of my way to block ads. I’ve side loaded a YouTube alternative onto my TV to avoid ads. My parents (boomers) have no problem paying for xm radio and still being advertised to!
I realize that i always hated ads with a passion. It has probably a lot to do with autism, but i learned early on to cut out ads on whs tapes that i recorded, even tho, the ads back there was nothing like the nightmare we live in now. When i see an ad on youtube, that’s what i do for however long it takes to get rid of them. Same with windows. So you want me to force to look at this? How about i learn Linux instead? At this point i don’t really even know what ads are or look like, but every now and then I’m in someone’s home and the tv is on and i think: wow, that’s crazy, i could never.
Gen Z here. I haven’t seen an ad that wasn’t a billboard or of my own volition for over a year. VHS ads don’t really count though so take that as you will.
Yeah same here, my Mom will actually DVR stuff and not skip through the ads lol. WTF.
DVRs still exist?
Yes but it’s really only boomers who still have cable and use them.
Plex and Jellyfin are DVRs. They just do other things too.
Surprisingly yes although I suspect they will phase them out real soon since you can skip ads. The only way to watch the show again will be on demand, which they put ads all over now. There are a few movie channels that offer ad free, but unless you pay through the nose the only way to avoid ads is to pirate things.
My cell phone has literally all notifications turned off.
Silent always. Never a pesky red dot telling me where to tap. Never a push notification reminding me that I should reconsider using something I obviously don’t need.
Yess… DND for life :D
I havent used an actual TV for regular broadcasting in about 25 years, so my experience of ads has been targeted bullshit about buying lawnmowers when I already bought one, and eat this ONE WEIRD FRUIT to half CANCER RISK.
I miss the adverts on cartoon network. Im tired of being an adult. Tell me more about that RC Car that sticks to walls. Show me the slushy maker again.
Right?! Advertise cool shit. Not corpo crap. Liberty, Applebee’s, some pharmaceutical called wongfelloffwizi
This isn’t really a shower thought. It’s more of a shower opinion.
Gen Z is gravitating towards analog. It’s the boomers who are addicted.
My first thought as well. My parents and in-laws are constantly on screens while watching TV.
Not that I’m in any position to speak for an entire generation but I feel like a lot of Gen Z also can’t understand why Gen Z can’t put their phones down and watch TV like a normal person.
I know plenty of Boomers who are additcetd to their smartphones. Even more so than the younger generations. Some even have the TV on in the background while doomscrolling.
Correction: boomscrolling 😁
😀
“tiktok will ruin your attention span”
Flips between channels every 20 seconds muttering about how there’s nothing good on
Watch older tv and you realize how much time is dedicated in many shows to recapping what happened three minutes ago before the commercial break.
3 minute commercial break? So like TV from 60s?
Last I heard the average sitcom comes in at 16 minutes for a 30 minute block.
I haven’t really watched made for broadcast tv since, say, 2008 and House episodes are about 42:00, 6 breaks, 3 min each. Maybe it’s longer, fewer breaks. But I’m sure it’s trashier now.
I got curious and did some quick searching. Looks like it depends greatly on the content and network with dramas usually having shorter breaks than sitcoms. The Big Bang Theory for instance averaged 17 minutes apparently.
One interesting factoid I found was that The Wizard of Oz, which is 101 minutes long, took up a 120 minute block in the 60s unedited but a 180 minute block today with edits to make it shorter.
And I’m a (late) millennial and spend most of my time at home neither on my phone nor TV, but my laptop computer (connected to two external monitors).
I got my first own computer when I was 10 and ever since then, using the computer has been my “default” activity when I’m at home. Smartphones came after that and didn’t change that, I still prefer big screens with a keyboard and mouse if I have them, mainly use my smartphone when I’m not at home.
I’m the same way. Phone usually sits at the desk by the door. I’m also almost able to convince myself I’m better than others due to not having a “smartphone addiction” as if it makes a difference which screen I’m staring at.
No such thing as “smartphone addiction” anyway. Not liking boredom is a fairly normal human instinct and the fact that we can now at almost all times use smartphones to get rid of boredom is a good thing. Quick reminder that “Internet addiction” started out as a satirical concept. Addiction is normally about substance use, maybe gambling; calling all hobbies or habits “addictions” completely devalues the concept.
Digital technology can be used for so many different things in so many different ways that it’s completely stupid to demonize it in general. I acknowledge that watching a steady stream of short videos (on TikTok or similar) for hours isn’t a very productive way to spend one’s time, but there are so many other things that can be done on screens!
So the definition of addiction is a repeated behavior that you know is causing your problems and you know you should stop but you can’t make yourself stop. Internet addiction is absolutely not a joke and never was. It doesn’t devalue the concept at all. That’s what it is. Addiction often ties in with substance dependence, but not necessarily.
That said, a lot of people do misuse the word addiction, if you use the phone a lot but it’s not causing problems in your life then it’s not addiction.
Because TV is boring as hell most of the times and majority of it is ads which cant be blocked.
At least with phone i have to move my thumbs or put a little taught into how to express myself.
Standard TV is just a complete mind numbing existence. It’s pretty much equal to just being in a coma. Even sleeping is better, at least the body is recovering at that time. Standard TV is one of the worst ways to consume data garbage.
Of course there are good movies and documentaries, but those are a minority.
Actually, boomers are some of the most phone-addicted people I come in contact with 🤷♂️
Gen-X quietly in the corner, remembering how they watched TV a lot too, but also mostly got kicked out of the house to play outside and “don’t come back in until dark”.
Edit to emphasize this wasn’t necessarily a choice we made for ourselves. Boomers (and the Silent Gen before them) wanted their peace from the kids, so we were on our own. Good and bad points to that kind of character building.
So much TV. Mostly UHF on Saturday mornings until cable came along.
My parents said I was addicted to TV. So they told me I was allowed to watch 4 hours a week and I could pick the programs I wanted to watch from the TV magazine.
Turned out that this just meant I could watch the shows I wanted instead of them switching them off. I only had 3 favourite shows, I never watched anything else anyway.
Millennial here: don’t come back until dark wasn’t exclusive to GenX.
Yeah, it didn’t really fade out until into the '90s.
Boomer here (cusp between boomer & gen x): Why not both put down the phone AND turn off the TV?
I have a TV but pretty much only turn it on for local news & weather. I absolutely can’t tolerate the ads and there are no good shows anyway except a few on PBS. I use a flip phone. I won’t call it a ‘dumb’ phone because it’s still android underneath and has navigation. But no internet.
Of course that doesn’t stop me from sitting on my ass in front of a computer on the internet, but at least I’m not doing that 24/7 and have other things for entertainment like books, games, hobbies.
edit: not to imply I speak for other boomers. Most of them are on their smartphones all the time, getting notifications every 5 seconds like everyone else.
