Screen addiction in older generations: What to know

Well, Americans over 60 are spending more than half their day on their phones and experts say older adults may be more vulnerable to unhealthy phone habits. Fox Medical Team's Dr. Mike joins us live. Dr. Mike, great to see you. Get off your phone. Oh, I'm sorry. I'm addicted to this thing and I'm in the age group that we're talking about. I'm sorry. We're all addicted. So how can we help parents and grandparents kind of set healthier boundaries with their phones? Well, I think everybody needs to follow my grandfather's advice. That is everything in moderation. And just like everything else, Katie, there's pluses and minuses. Now, if you're an older person, maybe you can't get to church, you can't get to be with friends, that device, that tablet might be a really beneficial thing. It can reduce some of your isolation. However, What this data is showing is that people that are older, especially over 65, are really using it and they're using it almost half of the time that they have some leisure time. By the way, they have a lot more leisure time. And so what's happening is they are. Addicted. They're doom scrolling. They get all their news. They get all their information from the tablet. And that sets them up for scams, because as we know, a lot of unscrupulous people out there try to take advantage of older folks and steal what they have. So there are pluses and minuses. If you have a loved one doing too much of this, Katie, might want to say, look. Hey, how about you visit grandma and that way take her out to lunch and get her off the phone? How do you like that? Well, and why could it be kind of harmful for, you know, someone who's, say, 65? Like you said, they have more leisure time, but they could be doing other things like going on a walk or being social with their friends. Well, right. And Katie, if you're on the screen all day long, it really has negative effects on your cognition. And it can even affect your sleep, because if you're just sitting on your butt all day long and you're just looking at the tablet, you're not getting out. You're not doing anything. You're not expending energy. And it's not good. Not good for you. We need more hobbies than doom scrolling, right? Well, yeah. I mean, Katie, I hope, I hope that you and I, when we get to be in our 80s, are rocking the Casbah, we're climbing mountains, doing all kinds, maybe pickleball champions. You know we will. I think you're going to be a pickleball champion. And I think you will be as well. That's what I think, Katie. Dr. Mike, thanks for hanging with us this morning. We appreciate it.