82 per cent of people 65 and older are going online, according to recent Statistics Canada data.miniseries/iStockPhoto / Getty Images
When we discuss the negative effects of screen time, we tend to think of kids addicted to Roblox and teenagers mindlessly scrolling social media. However, another age group is also seeing a rise in time spent on their devices: seniors.
According to Statistics Canada, more then ever, seniors aged 65 and older are going online: 82 per cent in 2022, up 6 per cent from 2020. For those 75 and older, it’s 72 per cent, an increase of 10 per cent. About half of seniors say they use an instant messaging app, such as WhatsApp, while 44 per cent watched videos online.
Howard Chertkow, a neurologist and the director of the Kimel Family Centre for Brain Health and Wellness at Baycrest in Toronto, says he often hears patients say they go online to fill their days, which can have both negative and positive effects. But is all this scrolling harming our brains as we age? Dr. Chertkow explains.
If parents struggle to put their phones down, how can we expect our kids to do the same?
First of all, is increased screen time actually damaging seniors’ brains?
Increased screen time does not cause dementia. It doesn’t cause Alzheimer’s disease. It’s not going to cause brain shrinkage, as far as we know.
Okay, so what do we know about how being online affects our brain health in a more indirect way?
When we think of brain health and aging, there are five main factors: physical stimulation and exercise, social stimulation, cognitive stimulation, sleep and diet.
In terms of social stimulation, it can be a mixed bag because there are patients who are immobile, are in wheelchairs or can’t get out of their apartments, so going on chat groups and FaceTiming with their families is better than nothing. That may be all the social interaction that they get, so that’s a positive.
On the other hand, if 10 hours a day on the screen is preventing people from leaving their apartments or preventing them from seeing their family or meeting friends, then it’s a definite negative. FaceTiming with your grandchildren is not the same as sitting on a couch cuddling them or reading with them. And we know that, for reasons that are currently mysterious, your social integration is a profound and powerful factor in whether your brain ages well or whether you end up with dementia.
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What about screen time’s effect on sleep?
We know that if you’re sleeping seven or more hours at night, that’s protective for the brain. During sleep you’re draining out toxins with your glymphatic system, and sleeping less than five hours is a risk factor for developing dementia.
It’s also now pretty clear that most screens emit blue light, which stimulates a particular nucleus in the brain and affects your pineal gland to secrete less melatonin – and the brain interprets that as it’s time to wake up.
You can avoid blue light by using a Kindle to read, diminishing the intensity of the screen, or using blue light filtering glasses.
44 per cent of seniors in 2022 told Statscan they watched videos online.monkeybusinessimages/iStockPhoto / Getty Images
There’s this idea that playing word games or solving math puzzles on our phones can be good for our brains. Are there certain types of screen time that are better than others?
There are people who are having constructive digital engagement with online learning, puzzles or brain games, and all of those are stimulating cognitive activity. And there’s a lot of research on using screens to provide a major boost in cognitive stimulation.
On the other hand, if you’re just watching sports and then surfing YouTube for 10 hours a day, that’s obviously not giving you cognitive engagement the way you need it. Like any technology, screens can have a positive benefit for people’s brains or they can have a negative benefit.
When we think about the negative impacts of high screen time, it’s often in the context of teenagers doomscrolling on social media. What are the different concerns when it comes to older people?
It’s hard to judge, and there really aren’t any particular studies generalizing the effect of screen time in older people versus younger people in the long term because being an older person in and of itself is going to increase isolation, depression and anxiety.
It becomes a personalized question: What is the screen doing for you? For example, it’s been shown that people who have less of a sense of purpose in life have a greater risk of developing dementia in the long term. So does watching a screen 10 hours a day give people a sense of meaning in their life? Almost certainly it does not.
This interview has been edited and condensed.