[Aromasin]

I'm struggling with this currently. My partner spends 3+ hours a day scrolling Instagram (I know, I checked it in her Apple phone metrics).

When we watch movies, it's me watching it and her scrolling. When we're in the car listening to music, it's just me listening to music and her scrolling. I'm starting to struggle initiating conversations because she's simply not paying attention. Whenever we're out, half her time is spent through the lense of her phone so she can take photos for her story.

She refuses to admit its a problem, disregards any argument I put forward about how it's disrupting her life, and when I really sit down with her and tell her how it makes me feels, she attacks me about the time I spend at my laptop (which I track meticulously and know its at most an hour outside of work, so she is simply using it as a defense).

I've dated girls with drug addictions before, and it was easier than this because they at least admitted it was a problem. I feel like I can't even initiate the first step with her. It's crushing, because besides this issue, she's pretty much perfect.

[dewclin]

I'm sorry to read this, I also have a similar same situation with my father.

He's in his late 70's and a year ago bought himself an iPhone. He now spends ~4 hours a day reading a tabloid newspaper app, which has endless content. His attention span has fallen noticeably and he can't keep up with conversations that happen in the same room while he's "scrolling".

When I visit he's on his phone, and we go out for a walk (in the beautiful countryside around us) he stops and disengages when his app sends him the latest notification about what's happened on "love island", or some other nonsense. When I leave he's on his phone.

I tried to talk to him about it, and about how it's particularly effecting my mother, who I can see is lonely and lost a person she could talk to, important at their time of life. He just gets defensive and angry, which leads no-where.

Will he spend the most of the rest of his life looking at a screen?

Edit: wording of final sentence.

[polishdude20]

Similar with my father but he's got a dumb phone and browses on his laptop. When we have conversations with family he seems to always tune out after a few minutes and goes on the computer. His whole world view has been flipped upside down by conspiracy and hoax content. We've talked to him about not mentioning that stuff while we're over but it seems to be affecting his happiness nonetheless.

[1270018080]

Mine too. It seems like every old father has fallen into the right wing conspiracy cesspool that has warped their mind. An entire generation lost. I really wonder what makes them so susceptible to that content. Internet illiteracy? Old age? It's just who they are? In other words, they want the conspiracies to be true, they want a reason to hate Fauci, Greta Thunberg etc.?

And even more, I wonder if it can be cured. I think it ties into how socially isolated men are, especially old men. Once you retire and your work social network is gone, their only social ties are online. They need to identify with a community, and I guess there is something appealing to being in a conspiracy in-group. It's just impossible to pull them out, because you have to replace that group with something else. And there's just nothing there for them.

[polishdude20]

Maybe a life of manual labor, always feeling like you can't get ahead in life. Then a group of people tell you it's because of some simple reason that you need to get angry about. Obviously it's something that you can't actually do anything about. So it makes you feel worse and makes you feel like you're at least doing something when you consume the content and spread it to others.

[galfarragem]

> It seems like every old father has fallen into the right wing conspiracy cesspool that has warped their mind.

Unfortunately this is not an age thing. Youngsters just have the tendency to embrace different manias (e.g. woke movement).

[skinnymuch]

Left and right politics aren’t equal. Just because they are on opposite sides.

[hnuser847]

But the extreme ends do have similar features (hatred of certain ethic/racial groups, black and white thinking, desire to destroy the existing political order instead of reform it, conspiratorial thinking, etc.). The fact that you don’t think they’re equal is just because you have more sympathy towards one end of the spectrum over the other.

[iasay]

Ah sounds like my father. He’s currently going through Musk is Jesus’ second coming and covid is a hoax phase.

[WalterSear]

My father thinks Putin is just waiting for the right time to strike and set everything right in the world.

We don't talk much, not because we fight but because he's always too busy with his phone when I visit him :(

[2b3a51]

Well, I'm 10 years younger than dewclin Senior and I recently switched to a Nokia dumb phone for the summer and I have been keeping a record of screen time and what I was actually doing on the laptop. Using a paper page a day diary.

I'm not in the tabloid market segment, and perhaps I had the insight to self-diagnose? Did dewclin Senior do much before the iPhone arrived?

Perspective: I remember that Uncle Dave spent most of his (long) retirement watching sport on the telly back in the 1970s/80s. Any chance of sparking an outside interest?

[softfalcon]

I have a similar issue with my wife. The reason you can’t initiate the first step is because they are in denial that it’s a problematic addiction. Everything is telling them that social media is “sort of okay” even though the studies abound proving it’s a nefarious addiction.

It’s easier with hard drugs cause society, government, and even business mostly agrees it’s likely bad for you (except alcohol, that one still gets a free pass).

For me, I still try to remind her to be in the moment. She’ll ask to watch a show or movie and within 5 minutes her brain has pulled up her phone to read Reddit. I pause the show and then I’ll ask, “do you want to stop watching?”

She’ll reluctantly put her phone away (sometimes I have to wait a whole minute for her to actually put it down) and then I’ll resume the show on the TV.

The addiction is very very real and their diminishing attention span shows in their behaviour in other ways as well.

[iasay]

Honestly looking back at my situation which paralleled yours, life’s not worth suffering through. Took 7 years to sort it out here which was a big chunk of my life. If you’re not happy, get out of the situation that makes you unhappy as soon as you can. The regrets hurt more than the relationship problems did.

[SoftTalker]

If you don't have kids with her, move on. She's made clear what her priorities are, or she needs the wakeup call that a failed relationship will bring.

[slothtrop]

Unfortunately you can't change a person. You can offer them an ultimatum, then whichever way it goes, so much the better.

[oblak]

Sounds horrible. How did you even start dating a person like that? She must be really something special but I just can't wrap my head around it because in my experience only exceptionally dull and dumb people are like that.

That said, I am a happily married old fart so it's only natural to not get some aspects of modern life.

[iasay]

People didn't always start like that...

[oblak]

How did it start in your case?

[prawn]

This can be especially difficult for people who work online and particularly in social media where responding quickly to comments can be part of the role/expectation/defensive response.

[slim]

maybe she's not perfect. maybe you just don't know her well enough because she's not there most of the time and you don't have projects you both really care about

[Feritioyyyyy]

Have you ever thought of making Instagram 'sliw' sometimes?

Might be unethical or it might help her to get away from it?

Perhaps talk to a therapist about how to approach it?

[BbzzbB]

sliw?