Silver-haired "mobile phone control": Stay up all night and watch videos and online shopping is good to
be addicted
With the improvement of living standards, the elderly are no longer unfamiliar with the use of smartphones, and many silver-haired "head-downers" have gradually emerged: they stay up late to look at their mobile phones, sign in to earn gold coins, invite friends to help "bargain prices", and often share and like each other. Health care articles.
Some adult children have complained about this, saying that the elderly are affected by mobile phones, reducing the quality of sleep, and even some bad short videos are biased towards the elderly’s health care common sense and values, which can easily lead to family conflicts. They opened a new window to understand the world, and also learned new skills such as video calling and mobile payment, which made life easier.
What impact does the smartphone have on the lives of the elderly?
The reporter conducted an investigation on this.
Some doctors suggest that looking at mobile phones for a long time will damage the health of the eyes and cervical spine of the elderly; social work experts suggest that children should give more care and communication to the elderly to reduce the elderly's dependence on mobile phones.
Text/Guangzhou Daily All Media Reporter Zhou Weiliang
The elderly are addicted to mobile phones and often stay up late
Children: Worry about their values being biased
"Mother is still reading videos in the middle of the night"
"What things can't be stored in the refrigerator?" "A few bottom lines in life must be told to children" "Remember what these organs are afraid of"... At 1 am, Ms. Yang's family WeChat group, a citizen, continued There is new news, it turns out that the 62-year-old mother-in-law Aunt Zhang is still staying up late in the room to scan short videos.
Since she learned to use her mobile phone to watch short videos, Aunt Zhang couldn't stop.
Ms. Yang said that her mother-in-law likes to watch suspenseful short dramas, health knowledge, chicken soup for emotional soul and so on.
Often in the dead of night, the mother-in-law's room will reveal a trace of light from the crack of the door, and all kinds of strange music and voices can be heard.
Ms. Yang said that the old man is old and his ears are not very good, so the volume of the mobile phone is particularly loud.
She reminded her mother-in-law to take breaks and turn down the volume so as not to disturb the rest of the neighbors.
Aunt Zhang turned off the lights, but Ms. Yang still heard the sound of the video from her mother-in-law's room after a while.
Ms. Yang tried to persuade her many times, but her mother-in-law was like an adolescent child, hiding under the quilt and continuing to look at her phone.
Aunt Liu, 63 years old this year, is also a heavy mobile phone user.
Her son, Mr. Wu, told reporters that her mother often looked at her mobile phone until the early hours of the morning, and her face was very haggard during the day.
In order to prevent his mother from continuing to watch short videos in the middle of the night, Mr. Wu tried to disconnect the router at 11 pm, but his mother soon knocked on the door and asked, "Why can't I access the Internet?" Mr. Wu had no choice but to reconnect the router. .
Mr. Wu said that in the past, his mother went downstairs to exercise every morning at 5 o'clock in the morning, but since his mother became addicted to short videos, when Mr. Wu went to work every morning, his mother still hadn't woken up.
In order to prevent his mother from continuing to play with his mobile phone, Mr. Wu limited the Internet time for his mother's mobile phone on the router, and he could not access the Internet from 12:00 pm to 6:00 am every day.
At first, Aunt Liu just thought that the mobile phone was faulty, but later she found that the network was lost at the same time every day, so she went to the nearby business hall to buy a mobile phone data package.
Since then, Aunt Liu can not only play with her mobile phone at home in the middle of the night, but even go out without traffic anxiety. Mr. Wu can only express helplessness.
"Swipe your phone" can easily lead to family conflicts
As the elderly are addicted to mobile phones, some family conflicts have gradually become prominent.
Citizen Mr. Ye said that because his mother was addicted to short videos, she almost had an accident once.
At that time, when Mr. Ye came back from get off work, he smelled a burnt smell when he entered the door. Seeing that there was a burnt chicken wing on the table, Mr. Ye realized that his mother was still immersed in the short video when she was cooking. It was only after the strong burnt smell that I knew it was "delayed".
Mr. Ye said with emotion, fortunately, only one dish was burnt, and nothing more serious happened.
Because he is addicted to watching short videos on his mobile phone, as long as he is free now, Mr. Ye's mother will hide in her room and play with her mobile phone, and he has reminded her more than once to pay attention to rest.
Mr. Ye told reporters that his son was also affected by the old man.
During dinner in the evening, Mr. Ye's mother ate while watching the short video. Mr. Ye's 5-year-old son followed suit and picked up his mobile phone to watch it.
Mr. Ye said that he gave his son a mobile phone to listen to audio stories. Since his mother loved to watch short videos, his son stopped listening to stories. When he got home from school, he took his mobile phone to watch short videos.
"Before my son loved to share with me the funny stories I heard today, now it's about sharing which video I saw today was funny."
Although Mr. Ye's mother didn't say anything about her son's control, she resisted by forwarding short videos to the family group.
These videos often contain some negative energy content, accompanied by provocative titles. Mr. Ye's mother used this method to express her dissatisfaction with her son.
Mr. Ye said frankly that the short video platform does have a lot of high-quality content, but there are also some content that does not conform to social values, and the values of the elderly can easily be biased.
Mr. Ye's mother often shares some short videos on health preservation. These short videos are often produced in poor ways. They use the avatars of well-known experts to promote the so-called "health preservation methods". Some of them are pseudoscience, and the elderly often believe them.
To this end, Mr. Ye downloaded several mainstream media clients for his mother, so that the elderly could watch original news and information with correct values.
But the old man still prefers to watch short videos recommended by the algorithm.
Mr. Ye worries that because the elderly repeatedly watch the same type of videos, through likes and shares, the algorithm will learn to "follow what they like" and push homogeneous videos to the elderly in a targeted manner.
Mr. Ye said frankly that in order to "resist" the algorithm, he has also liked many short video accounts of authoritative media like crazy, but he is "little power" after all.
"Silver-haired people with low heads" are at risk:
Click the link randomly, the mobile phone is easy to crash, and the body is "overwhelmed" by indulging in short videos.
In the past two years, Aunt Zhang has mastered the skills of adding friends on WeChat, video calling and online shopping.
Her daughter-in-law, Ms. Yang, said that her mother-in-law used to leave her cell phone in the corner, except when she called to get it. In the past two years, with the increase in time at home, her mother-in-law often made video calls to chat with relatives online.
Ms. Yang said that she worked from home for a while, but the Internet was frequently stuck. It turned out that her mother-in-law had been making video calls.
With the increase in group chats with relatives and friends, Aunt Zhang's social needs have been completely ignited.
She does not forget to like the short videos she has watched and share them with the family group.
In addition, Auntie Zhang did not reject the links sent by WeChat friends, and clicked to view all of them. Also, Aunt Zhang's mobile phone frequently crashed due to frequent clicks on external links of unknown origin.
Every three or five days, Aunt Zhang asks her daughter-in-law to help repair the phone.
"I often get home at 8 pm, and I have to start repairing my mobile phone before I drink a sip of water." Ms. Yang said that my mother-in-law's mobile phone always downloads a lot of inexplicable rogue software, which not only takes up too much memory, but also makes it easy to make Phone system crashes.
Ms. Yang reminded her mother-in-law not to click on the links sent by others casually. Although Aunt Zhang verbally agreed, the mobile phone still appeared frequently.
Economic account: After indulging in online shopping, I spend more money
Ms. Yang said that since her mother-in-law learned to shop online, she couldn't stop.
"She likes to sign in to earn gold coins every day, and invite friends to help bargain." Ms. Yang said that her mother-in-law was very frugal, but now she is "smashed" by coupons from major e-commerce platforms every day, and she constantly collects orders to "buy, buy, buy" "Now I have five packs of rice, four barrels of oil, and a lot of daily necessities at home." Aunt Zhang said that it is very convenient to buy rice, oil, and paper towels online, and you don't have to bring it back with sweaty bags.
Ms. Yang also introduced that Aunt Zhang was completely unable to resist the words of the anchor who brought goods in the live broadcast of the online platform, and often couldn't help but place orders.
"The elderly have a weak awareness of prevention and do not know much about the sales routines of health care products on the Internet. Some network anchors have packaged themselves as medical experts, using the old people's mentality that they care about their health very much and using many routines, making the elderly addicted to the purchase of health care products. Mother-in-law In the past, I always criticized me for receiving express delivery too much, but now my house is full of 'trophies' that she snapped up online." Ms. Yang said that since her mother-in-law learned to shop online, she has spent more money than before.
Health Account: Elderly people are vulnerable to damage to their eyesight and spine
In addition, the long-term viewing of mobile phones by the elderly has a greater impact on health.
Chen Lina, deputy chief physician of the Department of Ophthalmology, Shenzhen Hospital of Southern Medical University, said that long-term viewing of mobile phones in the elderly can lead to problems such as visual fatigue and dry eyes.
"There was once an old man who watched videos for seven or eight hours a day and almost lost sight." After the old man's description, Chen Lina diagnosed the old man with Meibomian gland dysfunction.
She underwent physical therapy for the elderly for three weeks, during which time she forced her family to turn off her mobile phone, and the vision of the elderly improved.
Playing with mobile phones with your head down for a long time also increases the burden on the spine of the elderly.
Ren Yaolong, an orthopaedic surgeon at Shenzhen Pingle Orthopaedic Hospital, said that there was once a retired elder sister in her 60s who was idle after her grandson went to kindergarten and began to indulge in short videos on her mobile phone.
"When the eldest sister came to the hospital at that time, she couldn't lift her head, she felt dizzy, headache, nausea and vomiting." After Ren Yaolong's diagnosis, the old man's cervical vertebrae degenerated, and there was a phenomenon of reverse arching. After 20 days of treatment, he slowly returned to normal.
Ren Yaolong said that when some elderly people have more time after retirement, they will pass the time by looking at their mobile phones, and their families should pay attention to this phenomenon.
It is also beneficial for the elderly to "swipe their mobile phones"
"Learn more skills"
The elderly have different opinions about their children's worries. Indeed, some elderly people have learned new skills by "swiping their mobile phones".
The reporter found that new things such as mobile payment and online car-hailing have also begun to integrate into the lives of the elderly.
Aunt Chen, 63, used to go out with cash to buy groceries, but since merchants now generally use barcode scanning to collect payments, she has also learned to use mobile phones to pay.
Not only that, Aunt Chen also learned to take a taxi. In the past, when she went out, her daughter called a taxi for her remotely. She had to call her daughter first and ask her to communicate with the driver. She was often unable to get in the car due to poor communication.
"Now I call the car all by myself."
Aunt Chen also followed a lot of short video bloggers who cook, and taught them hands-on through videos. Aunt Chen successfully "stealed teachers".
She said the short video platform can become a free learning platform if the elderly use their mobile phones to purposefully look for useful information.
"I didn't spend a penny, but I learned how to cook a variety of dishes. Before I got into short videos, I didn't know there was such a good thing." Aunt Chen sighed.
Yi Songguo, professor and director of the Department of Sociology at Shenzhen University, said that access to the Internet for the elderly will help enrich their lives and enable them to better integrate into society.
"With the diversification of mobile phone functions, the elderly will naturally spend more time on it. It cannot simply be assumed that the elderly are addicted to it."
Expert advice:
Family members should take more care of "silver-haired people with bowed heads"
Dr. Chen Lina said that compared with young people, the elderly are more prone to fatigue when looking at mobile phones, especially in the summer when looking at mobile phones in an air-conditioned room, which will accelerate the evaporation of tears and aggravate dry eye symptoms.
She reminded that some elderly people look down at their mobile phones for a long time, which can easily lead to insufficient blood supply and black eyes.
In addition, some elderly people choose to lie down and look at their mobile phones.
Chen Lina said that whether you lie on your back or on your side, it will increase the burden on your eyes.
For some elderly people who like to lie in bed and look at their mobile phones before going to bed, even after turning off the lights, Chen Lina said that looking at mobile phones in a dark environment is more likely to cause vision loss.
She suggested that the elderly should develop good bedtime habits, avoid lying down and watch mobile phones, and do not watch videos for a long time in a dark environment.
Dr. Ren Yaolong said that the long-term use of mobile phones by the elderly has the greatest impact on the cervical spine.
When you bow your head for a long time, the physiological curvature of the cervical spine will change, and the cervical spine may even appear reversed.
At the same time, the neck and shoulders will also have symptoms of stiffness and soreness due to long-term viewing of the mobile phone.
Ren Yaolong suggested that the elderly should not look at the mobile phone for more than 40 minutes at a time. After reading, they should do moderate exercise to relieve the cervical spine and other parts.
"The elderly can raise their heads more, improve their physiological curvature, and help relieve muscle fatigue in the neck through the action of looking up at the sky." Ren Yaolong reminded that the two movements of "surrounding the head" and "looking left and right" can relieve cervical spine fatigue, but Remember to go too fast to prevent injury.
"The lack of children's care and the reduction of communication make the elderly more and more dependent on mobile phones." Professor Yi Songguo believes that children should first understand why the elderly are addicted to mobile phones.
"The elderly can communicate with distant relatives, friends and past colleagues through mobile phones, which relieves their loneliness to a certain extent." Yi Songguo said that if the children only see the elderly's addiction to mobile phones after returning home, Without understanding the reasons behind it, it is easy to deepen the contradiction.
Yi Songguo said that for the elderly who are addicted to mobile phones, the care and communication of children can comfort the elderly, and more family and communication should be used to distract the elderly from mobile phones.
"After eating, talk to the elderly more about family affairs, take a walk, improve the relationship with the elderly, and reduce the elderly's dependence on mobile phones." Yi Songguo suggested that adult children should also lead by example, and try to look at their mobile phones as little as possible at home; Interesting content on the video platform can be grafted into reality to help the elderly develop physical hobbies.
For the elderly who are particularly addicted to mobile phones, Yi Songguo suggested that their families should introduce social professional institutions to intervene.