Meet the real screen addicts: The elderly

The digital habits that defined youth are transforming old age.

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Hundreds of teenagers, sometimes strong-armed by their parents, have trooped through the doors of Britain's National Centre for Gaming Disorders since it opened in 2019. Yet lately the publicly funded clinic has admitted a steady trickle of rather different patients.

Its specialists in video game addiction have so far treated 67 people over the age of 40. The oldest, with an obsession for games on her smartphone, was 72.

Something approaching a moral panic has taken hold in many countries over the impact of digital technology on young people. Professor Jonathan Haidt, a social psychologist and author, speaks of an "anxious generation" of youngsters whose childhood is being stolen by smartphones and social apps.

Schools increasingly demand that phones are kept in lockers or at home. Parent-run groups such as "Smartphone Free Childhood" preach abstinence. In December, Australia will ban under-16s from using social media.

Yet a less noticed explosion in screen time is happening within a different generation.

As today's 60-somethings, already familiar with digital technology, enter retirement, time spent on smart devices is shooting up among the elderly. Some older adults "are increasingly living their lives through their phones, the way teenagers or adolescents sometimes do", says Dr Ipsit Vahia, head of the Technology and Ageing Laboratory at McLean Hospital, part of Harvard Medical School. The digital habits that have transformed the teenage years are now coming to old age.

The elderly have long been champion television-watchers. Free time, immobility and isolation are a recipe for spending hours in front of the box: In 2024, over-75s in Britain spent more than 5½ hours a day watching broadcast TV, a good five hours more than those aged 16 to 24, according to media regulator Ofcom.