SINGAPORE – It has happened several times over the past year. Hilda, 32, has found her 77-year-old father nodding off at the dining table, his smartphone propped upright, the same short video looping endlessly in front of him.
The clips, usually Facebook Reels or TikTok videos narrated by an artificial voice, range from slapstick gags to condensed movie plots.
When he wakes, he instinctively swipes the tabletop, as if the screen were still there.
“He spends most of his free time at home, glued to his phone,” says Hilda, a marketing professional who declined to give her full name.
Her father retired more than a decade ago. With his wife and adult children working full time, he is often alone during the day.
At family meals and gatherings, Hilda has noticed him drifting away mid-conversation, reaching for his phone and scrolling in silence.
“He doesn’t really participate in family conversations any more,” she says.
Hilda’s experience is increasingly common among many families in Singapore.
Across online forums and in private conversations, adult children are voicing concern about elderly parents who spend hours scrolling short-form videos, disengaging from family life and, in some cases, showing signs of compulsive screen use.
While smartphone addiction is often associated with young people who grew up online, a similar pattern is emerging at the other end of the age spectrum – not a phone-based childhood but a phone-based retirement.
The Infocomm Media Development Authority’s (IMDA) 2020 Annual Survey on Infocomm Usage found that smartphone use among residents aged 75 and above jumped from 41 per cent to 60 per cent between 2019 and 2020, a surge accelerated by the Covid-19 pandemic.
By 2023, IMDA reported that 89 per cent of seniors owned a smartphone.
For a growing number of Singapore’s seniors, smartphones have shifted from a tool of convenience to a constant companion, raising questions about loneliness, health and how digital habits are reshaping ageing in Singapore.
Dr Natalie Pang has been studying internet and device use for nearly two decades, and has seen the conversation around seniors and screens shift in unexpected ways.
An associate professor and head of the Communications and New Media Department at the National University of Singapore, she recalls that as recently as 15 years ago, the focus for seniors was simply on getting them connected.
In 2012, Singtel launched Project Silverline, collecting donated iPhones from consumers and refurbishing them with senior-friendly features such as one-touch emergency contacts and medication reminders. The devices were then distributed through voluntary welfare organisations to seniors who could not afford to buy a phone.
“At that time, helping seniors go digital meant giving them smartphones with mobile plans so they could search for information and access e-government services,” she says.
By the mid-2010s, however, Dr Pang began noticing a change.
When surveying about 60 vulnerable seniors living alone in rental flats, she found that once they crossed the initial barrier of acceptance, smartphone adoption was rapid.
“That in itself is not a bad thing,” she says, noting that smartphones have become an essential gateway to everyday life in Singapore.
Many public services are now designed on a “digital-first” basis, requiring a smartphone to log in securely, receive notifications or complete transactions.
For seniors in Singapore, this means a phone is no longer just a communication device, but also a must-have for managing doctor appointments, paying bills, checking transport information and maintaining a sense of independence.
Yet, the same device that keeps life running smoothly can, over time, begin to dominate it, blurring the line between having a handy helper and unhealthy dependence.
From April 2021 to July 2022, researchers in Singapore surveyed 6,509 participants aged 15 to 65 as part of the Health and Lifestyle Survey, a nationwide study aimed at establishing the prevalence of behavioural and substance addictions among Singapore residents.
The survey found that one in three Singaporeans exhibited problematic smartphone use, which the research linked to poorer mental health, including insomnia, depression and anxiety.
The issue was more pronounced among those aged 15 to 21, with half showing signs of an unhealthy relationship with their phones. It did not find particularly high rates of problematic smartphone use among elderly users.
Still, Ms Shannen Ang, a senior counsellor at SAGE Counselling Centre, which offers free support to seniors and their families, says she has observed more older adults turning to their phones to cope with loneliness and insomnia.
Many get into TikTok, Instagram and Facebook through links they receive in group chats, and the content captivates and keeps them online, she says.
Dr Kimberly Chew, a psychologist who runs AO Psychology, has observed smartphone dependency across a wide age range.
“People struggling with addiction often find self-control and discipline particularly challenging. This difficulty stems from the profound impact addiction has on the brain’s chemistry and functioning,” says Dr Chew.
Symptoms include anxiety or impatience without a device, a constant preoccupation with it, and physical discomfort such as wrist or neck pain. Consequences could extend to work or study, with users missing tasks or struggling to concentrate.
Dr Tan Hwee Sim, a psychiatrist at Raffles Counselling Centre, notes that while smartphone addiction is not yet formally recognised as a mental disorder, problematic use shows patterns similar to behavioural addictions.
“The signs and symptoms of smartphone addiction demonstrate the core symptoms of impaired control, which parallel those of substance-related and addictive disorders,” says Dr Tan.
According to the Singapore Optometric Association, optometry practices here are seeing more older adults with eye discomfort linked to increased use of smartphones and digital devices.
The most common issues they see are headaches from tired and strained eyes, dry eyes, and blurred or fluctuating vision after prolonged screen use, says the association.
“Older adults are more affected because the eyes naturally become drier and less flexible with age, so they don’t cope as well with long periods of near work.”
At the heart of compulsive screen use is dopamine, a brain chemical linked to anticipation.
Professor Gemma Calvert, a neuroscientist and a pioneer in neuromarketing, says: “Dopamine is the brain’s prediction chemical.”
Neuromarketing is a field that applies insights from brain science to understand how people respond to products, media and digital experiences.
Dopamine is released when the brain expects a reward – such as the next video, message or notification – rather than when the reward actually arrives.
Short-form video platforms are especially effective at triggering this response, says Prof Calvert, who teaches at Nanyang Technological University. Infinite scrolling removes natural stopping points, while algorithms deliver a steady stream of brief, emotionally charged clips.
