Unsurprising to anyone around boomers. Grandma asks Gemini everything. Dad scrolls shorts all day. Grandpa rage posts on Facebook.
Then you talk to them about real life shit and they act like they understand, but how could they understand when they haven’t been present for years? Their opinions and beliefs are no longer based in reality. They say stupid out of touch shit and have absolutely no hobbies anymore. The disconnect between me and my parents and grandparents makes me physically sick and there’s legitimately no amount of effort I can put in that would get any of them to stop… Because it’s addictive as fuck.
For fucks sake any time I’m with my dad he’s just scrolling short videos and laughing/making comments trying to bring everyone else into what he’s watching and holy shit it’s legitimately the most annoying fucking thing. Put your fucking phone down and experience real life. YOU think it’s so awesome because they know EXACTLY what you like but nobody else fucking cares.
I see everyone around me mentally degrading because of this shit and I’m feeling worried. It makes me feel like I need to make a Facebook account just to fill their feeds with less slop but I deleted my Facebook 10 years ago. I don’t know how else to get through to them. If anyone has ideas that’ve worked on their family, lmk. Rant over.
this sounds like everyone i meet. except… they are not boomers. they are millennials.
and when i say i like doing stuff in real life they get very confused and often angry.
and if i say ‘lets go to a movie’ they say ‘it’s too long and hard to pay attention’. and if i say I like to read, they tell me I’m weird and pretentious.
and they can’t hold a conversation on topic for more than like a minute or two. and then when I don’t want to interact with them anymore… they tell me I’m the problem.
I used to actually kinda like talking to my co-workers and people my age… now I just hate it. Because everyone’s brain is destroyed, everything is instant gratification echo chamber nonsense or anxiety-fueled social comparison.
and when I go on social media… I am just repulsed confused how anyone could enjoy the endless slop it serves up, and often turned off by people to the point I just block them. I’d rather remain ignorant than look at their try hard posts about how happy and wonderful their life is… because when you talk to them IRL they are anxious and depressed.
Only reason I’m commenting is the movie thing, cause the “hard to pay attention” is wild to me, even as someone with severe ADHD.
I don’t like going to, or sitting down for, movies most of the time because of dermatillomania (warning on images there) secondary to my ADHD resulting in me usually creating entirely new holes in my fingers/hands absentmindedly while I’m watching. There’s a secondary ADHD “itch” due to the drive for spontenaeity, but I get hooked easily on what I’m watching once I do – it’s more of a “but I could be working on X project or something” thought, but then I’ll sit and watch a 2 hour episode of Dimension 20 with no distractions like it’s nothing.
I just… I don’t get how people could pivot to being so short-attention-spanned they don’t want anything like that. Those of us with ADHD are very used to how short attention spans feel, but they’re almost never that short. What the hell.
I recently watched Project Hail Mary and The Odyssey more or less back to back with family. PHM, I was climbing the walls halfway through thinking holy shit when will this be over, The Odyssey I was engaged the whole time. Both movies are approaching three hours. One of them is a good movie, and the other one is not.
I feel you and your frustrations, same for me on all accounts. Mom wonders why I don’t visit often but then sits there on Facebook the entire time.
I tried to fight it online, you won’t win. Their algorithms bury your stuff, your comments get the stupid laughing emoji, it’s not worth it. Plus it just starts to suck you in so it’s a lose lose.
The only thing that helps is getting them off their phones. There’s no silver bullet there, but simply disconnecting them somehow. Starting a hobby with them, or hiking, or something that isn’t being in their phones. If you ban phones you’re the villain so be careful, but you can do things that are less phone involved. When they’re not memorized by their phones they come back a little.
Unsurprising to anyone around boomers. Grandma asks Gemini everything. Dad scrolls shorts all day. Grandpa rage posts on Facebook.
Then you talk to them about real life shit and they act like they understand, but how could they understand when they haven’t been present for years? Their opinions and beliefs are no longer based in reality. They say stupid out of touch shit and have absolutely no hobbies anymore. The disconnect between me and my parents and grandparents makes me physically sick and there’s legitimately no amount of effort I can put in that would get any of them to stop… Because it’s addictive as fuck.
For fucks sake any time I’m with my dad he’s just scrolling short videos and laughing/making comments trying to bring everyone else into what he’s watching and holy shit it’s legitimately the most annoying fucking thing. Put your fucking phone down and experience real life. YOU think it’s so awesome because they know EXACTLY what you like but nobody else fucking cares.
I see everyone around me mentally degrading because of this shit and I’m feeling worried. It makes me feel like I need to make a Facebook account just to fill their feeds with less slop but I deleted my Facebook 10 years ago. I don’t know how else to get through to them. If anyone has ideas that’ve worked on their family, lmk. Rant over.
Folk on Facebook are a lost cause. They have lost their minds, beyond redemption. Meta needs to be absolutely hoofed into the ether.
this sounds like everyone i meet. except… they are not boomers. they are millennials.
and when i say i like doing stuff in real life they get very confused and often angry.
and if i say ‘lets go to a movie’ they say ‘it’s too long and hard to pay attention’. and if i say I like to read, they tell me I’m weird and pretentious.
and they can’t hold a conversation on topic for more than like a minute or two. and then when I don’t want to interact with them anymore… they tell me I’m the problem.
I used to actually kinda like talking to my co-workers and people my age… now I just hate it. Because everyone’s brain is destroyed, everything is instant gratification echo chamber nonsense or anxiety-fueled social comparison.
and when I go on social media… I am just repulsed confused how anyone could enjoy the endless slop it serves up, and often turned off by people to the point I just block them. I’d rather remain ignorant than look at their try hard posts about how happy and wonderful their life is… because when you talk to them IRL they are anxious and depressed.
God, I’ve seen so much of this.
Only reason I’m commenting is the movie thing, cause the “hard to pay attention” is wild to me, even as someone with severe ADHD.
I don’t like going to, or sitting down for, movies most of the time because of dermatillomania (warning on images there) secondary to my ADHD resulting in me usually creating entirely new holes in my fingers/hands absentmindedly while I’m watching. There’s a secondary ADHD “itch” due to the drive for spontenaeity, but I get hooked easily on what I’m watching once I do – it’s more of a “but I could be working on X project or something” thought, but then I’ll sit and watch a 2 hour episode of Dimension 20 with no distractions like it’s nothing.
I just… I don’t get how people could pivot to being so short-attention-spanned they don’t want anything like that. Those of us with ADHD are very used to how short attention spans feel, but they’re almost never that short. What the hell.
Eh, I think it’s probably movie dependent.
Example:
I recently watched Project Hail Mary and The Odyssey more or less back to back with family. PHM, I was climbing the walls halfway through thinking holy shit when will this be over, The Odyssey I was engaged the whole time. Both movies are approaching three hours. One of them is a good movie, and the other one is not.
I feel you and your frustrations, same for me on all accounts. Mom wonders why I don’t visit often but then sits there on Facebook the entire time.
I tried to fight it online, you won’t win. Their algorithms bury your stuff, your comments get the stupid laughing emoji, it’s not worth it. Plus it just starts to suck you in so it’s a lose lose.
The only thing that helps is getting them off their phones. There’s no silver bullet there, but simply disconnecting them somehow. Starting a hobby with them, or hiking, or something that isn’t being in their phones. If you ban phones you’re the villain so be careful, but you can do things that are less phone involved. When they’re not memorized by their phones they come back a little.