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Title: Meet the Real Screen Addicts: the Elderly

Link: https://tech.slashdot.org/story/25/11/04/1654...

Britain's National Centre for Gaming Disorders has treated 67 people over the
age of 40 since opening in 2019. The oldest patient was a 72-year-old woman
with a smartphone gaming obsession. Britons over 65 spent more than three
hours a day online on smartphones, computers and tablets last year, according
to Ofcom. They spent more than five and a half hours watching broadcast
television. Over-65s are more likely than under-25s to own tablets, smart
televisions, e-readers, and desktop and laptop computers, a seven-country
survey by GWI found. Nearly a fifth of 55- to 64-year-olds own a games
console. Ipsit Vahia, who heads the Technology and Ageing Laboratory at
McLean Hospital, part of Harvard Medical School, said some older adults are
increasingly living their lives through their phones the way teenagers or
adolescents sometimes do. A 2022 study in South Korea estimated that 15% of
those aged 60-69 were at risk of phone addiction. A meta-analysis published
in April of studies on more than 400,000 older adults found that over-50s who
regularly used digital devices had lower rates of cognitive decline than
those who did not.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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