One evening, a son walked into his home; looking around, he noticed that no one asked about him. His parents were busy doomscrolling in their usual manner, with the volume turned up and the brightness high. The child cleared his throat to grab their attention, but there was no response. He tried again, but this time by raising his voice louder. Finally, his mother replied without looking up: “Haan, bolo, I’m listening.” She was not listening because her main focus was a random kitchen show on YouTube.
Before these smartphones, the lives of our parents were quite simple. They were comfortable in their routines. Children were addicted to their mobiles, and the older generation were the concerned observers. In particular, parents were worried about the side effects of social media. Grandparents used to shake their heads at dinner tables where everyone stared down at their devices, instead of at each other.
Research shows that the attention spans of children and teenagers have been affected, and the dark side of browsing affects young minds before they even have a chance to form themselves. This story has changed now, and scenes are different today. In our household, parents, uncles, aunts, and grandparents are unable to put the phone down. Retired fathers are addicted to scrolling through Facebook to understand politics and religion on reels and short videos. Mothers, instead of telling moral stories at bedtime, spend most of their leisure time on cooking videos and random clips of their favorite drama serials. The addiction has simply spread along with the generation.
The consequences of doomscrolling among elders deserve serious attention because its impacts are very disturbing. The miserable practice of consuming misinformation and false news and algorithmically altered streams was a complaint of young people but has now also transferred to elders. Elders have little digital literacy to scrutinize and differentiate between manipulation and the multiple tactics of misinformation used to spread propaganda. They have more free time and face loneliness after retirement and sending children abroad for a better future. Social media is much more addictive because it offers quick and alarming headlines, conspiracy theories forwarded by equally anxious friends, and a dopamine loop as addictive as anything a teenager has ever fallen into.
In the past, parents set the norms. The household rules were clear: children were strictly told to put the phone away at the dinner table. Screen time was limited, and discussions about “family time” were very common. Now, many families admit publicly that the lecture has been reversed. It is the child who has to gently ask a parent to put the phone down during dinner and family time. A young adult has to remind an ageing father that the WhatsApp forward and Facebook post he just shared with the whole family group are false news. There is something tragic in this.
The elders who once worried, rightly, about the stealing of childhood from their children due to mobile phones are now quietly spending most of the time on the same platforms. The stories that used to be told, the questions that used to be asked at the end of a day, the calm evenings that used to exist before dinner these are being replaced, hour by hour, scroll by scroll, by content that everybody forgets a day later. These are not just allegations because the elders are not weak-willed for falling into this trap. They are human, and the trap was built for humans.
Just identifying the cause does not take away the responsibility to respond. Families now need honest conversations about not repeating the old scripts about children and screens. Everyone in the house, regardless of age, now needs boundaries around their phone. Perhaps there is a need for a basket by the front door where every phone goes during dinner, parents included. It means that children are finding the courage and the diplomatic way to say to a parent what parents have said to children for fifteen years: put the phone down; I want to talk to you.
The dinner table is still there. The chairs are still arranged in the same way. The evenings with full attention from everyone are missing. That is worth asking for from children, yes, but now, just as urgently, from their parents too.
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The views and opinions expressed in this article/paper are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial position of Paradigm Shift.
Abrar Hashmi is associated with the Institute of Regional Studies, Islamabad. He is also a student of international relations at Government College University, Lahore.
