Sitting on a plastic stool under the shade of a persimmon tree in a small agricultural village in the eastern province of Shandong, Mrs. Li sighs before starting to talk about her husband. "He doesn't let me sleep because he spends hours watching noisy videos on his phone," she complains. "We go to bed at 10 p.m., but he keeps watching videos until one or two in the morning." The room's light goes out, but then the Douyin parade begins, the Chinese brother of TikTok: farmers cooking, monologues... "He turns the volume up because he's getting deafer. I tell him to stop, but he doesn't listen to me."
Her husband, Zhang, is 82 years old, the same age as her. He spent his life bending over in the fields, cultivating wheat and corn, and working in a nickel factory. Now he hardly leaves the house. The mobile phone has become his main window to the world. And also a worrying obsession.
Zhang not only consumes an endless stream of short videos. Since he learned to use Taobao, China's largest e-commerce platform, he has also become addicted to shopping. Tools he doesn't need, cheap food, and clothes. Every few days, a delivery person shows up at his door. "He buys anything. Sometimes he doesn't even remember what he ordered," his wife laments.
In the same village in Shandong, another neighbor, septuagenarian Shi, admits that she can't tear herself away from her phone either. "I spend the day watching weiduanju," she blurts out, referring to the popular micro-dramas (or mini soap operas), the latest cultural phenomenon on social media. These are vertical episodes of just one or two minutes, with seasons of around 100 episodes, and are only broadcast through these platforms.
Mrs. Shi is now hooked on a soap opera about family revenge. Each episode ends with a cliffhanger that forces the viewer to click on the next video. And the next. And the next.
In this corner of rural China, where until a few years ago most elderly people didn't have a mobile phone, the digital revolution has been rapid. During family meals, it is common to see the elderly bent over their screens, mechanically swiping their fingers. Some have gone years without touching cash. Everything is paid for with mobile apps like WeChat or Alipay: from market vegetables to medical consultations. "Using digital wallets is much more practical. But I worry that my grandfather won't leave the house. He's glued to videos of farmer influencers all day," says young Yuan, Zhang's granddaughter.
In a country that has directed its technological restrictions towards teenagers, now there is also growing concern about the elderly. The Asian giant has around 300 million people over 60 years old. Of these, about 161 million are internet users, with a penetration rate of over 50%. A report from the data analysis firm QuestMobile reveals that seniors spend an average of 129 hours per month online, over four hours a day. Moreover, over 30% remain active past midnight. Short videos absorb 35.1% of all that time.
The numbers have debunked the old stereotype of the disconnected grandparent. According to a survey by the National Committee on Aging, nearly 60% of elderly Chinese show tendencies associated with internet addiction. And short videos almost completely dominate their consumption habits.
Family stories are starting to resemble each other. A man named Gao, recently cited by Chinese media, decided to analyze his mother's digital behavior after noticing worrying changes. He discovered that every morning she opened several apps to register, watch ads, and accumulate redeemable points. Then she spent hours watching videos recommended by algorithms and fast-paced micro-dramas. At night, she immersed herself in live broadcasts where hosts sold miraculous products while thousands of comments repeated slogans like "I want it!" or "Buy it now!"
When he finally took her to the hospital, doctors diagnosed her with spinal problems related to prolonged mobile phone use. Specialists warn of an increase in diseases such as dry eye syndrome (an eye condition that occurs when the eyes do not produce enough tears), glaucoma, or cervical injuries among elderly people who spend hours with their heads bent over the screen.
Experts see something deeper behind this phenomenon. "Loneliness is one of the main drivers of this addiction", explains Xu Ying, a researcher specializing in digital aging, who has conducted surveys with elderly people to understand why some develop addictive behaviors towards their phones. "Many retirees experience a void after retiring and find in the internet an immediate form of entertainment and companionship," she adds.
"Algorithms not only recommend content anymore: they shape behavior. Among the elderly, emotional rewards and the sense of companionship are some of the most effective mechanisms for generating dependence," says Li Zheng, a researcher at the Chinese Medical University of Nanjing and author of a recent study on digital addiction in the elderly.
China's social transformation helps to understand the background. For decades, millions of young people and adults left rural areas to work in big cities. The grandparents were left behind. Today, many live alone. Children and grandchildren appear during holidays. The rest of the time, the phone fills the space that the family used to occupy.