The Agenda with Steve Paikin (Audio) - What Are Smartphones Doing to the Aging Brain?

Episode Date: October 7, 2026

For many older adults, smartphones have become an important way to stay connected and engaged. We meet Marla Lewis and her daughter Rosie to see the role technology plays in Marla's life after retirement. Then, MediaSmarts' Kara Brisson-Boivin, cognitive neurologist Howard Chertkow, and McMaster University's Nicole Dalmer examine how much screen time is too much and what smartphone use could mean for older adults' health and well-being.Donate Today : https://tvo.me/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

What a difference a year can make. When you support TVO, you're helping bring trusted stories, inspiring ideas, and lifelong learning to people across Ontario. And as a thank you, you can receive the 2027 TVO calendar. Filled with beautiful photography from the documentaries and programs your support helps make possible. It's a year-long reminder of the learning, beauty, and discovery your generosity supports. Donate $40 or more to claim yours today at TVO.com. slash calendar 2027 and make every month a little more inspiring. Thanksgiving's on the horizon, which means a lot of families will be getting together and sitting down for a big meal.

It also means you might find yourself saying, put the phone down, we're eating. But not to your kids, to your parents. That's right. Teenagers aren't the only ones glued to their devices. In 2022, nearly three quarters of Canadians aged 75 and older were using the internet. That's up from 62% just two years earlier. Now, being online can mean all kinds of things, catching up with family, reading the news, playing games, or scrolling on social media. But as more older adults spend time on their devices, there are questions worth asking.

Like, what effect is all that screen time having on them? And when does a tool that offers connection become a bad habit? We meet a mother and daughter who have made technology an important part of their lives, and we'll look at what science has to say about how screen time can affect the brain, for better and for worse. I'm Jay and Jaganovin. Welcome to the rundown. For some older adults, a smartphone is much more than a way to pass the time. Take Marla Lewis. She's post-retirement in dealing with low mobility, and her smartphone has become an important part of her daily life. And her daughter, Rosie, wants to make sure she's getting the most.

out of it. Marla Lewis, great to have you in our studio. Rosie Lewis, great to have you on the line. How are you doing? Good. And Rosie? I'm very good. Thank you. Marla, I want to understand a little bit about your relationship with your phone. What do you use your phone for? Well, number one, it's a love relationship. Not even a love-hate relationship, it's all love. And I use it now for everything. I use it for the time, the weather, fact check information, chat GPT, now gets to the heart of the phone number before I can look it up. And my phone is, I do Zoom calls on my phone, I do my reports on my phone. If I have to send a file, I do it on my phone.

It's very clear. On your phone, there's lots of tools that are useful. But what I didn't hear from you is social media apps. Do you use any social media apps? A lot of them. A lot of them. of them. Walking through them. So I start, I probably start

with Facebook. I take a quick look to see if there's any headlines going on that I might need to know because I belong to a couple of groups that sort of give you the immediate news. And I also use Marketplace on Facebook a lot. I go to Instagram to see what's up just with general.

And then I go to TikTok, which is my favorite animal right now. And I think that's where I stop. I don't use dating apps or anything. Help me understand here. I am guilty of this. I get on the couch.

I got maybe 10, 15 minutes before I got to do something. Right. And I'm scrolling. Right. And then, lo and behold, two hours has passed. Is that a common thing for you? Is that, you know, is Rosie giving you a reminder, Hey, Mum?

Let's get back to reality here. Not too much for me. Okay. For me. I have a really rigid relationship. with time. So if I know that I have to meet you at 8 o'clock and I know that at 7 o'clock I've got that hour, I do my check on my phone, my email, my this, then I move to the but I watch that clock. And I don't care what time it is, whatever I'm doing at that exact

minute, it gets turned off and away I go. Now, Marla, you mentioned that sometimes you find yourself on your phone in the middle of the night. Yes. Help me understand a little bit about sort of that, a bit of a trap, I guess, that, you know. Yes and no. I have a routine. So my routine is always the same. I check to see if my daughter's okay. First thing I do. Then I go to my email and then I go sometimes just to the weather.

I don't know why. And then I'll move on to Facebook to see what middle of the night catastrophe has gone on if there's any. And then I'll move to TikTok to entertain me. And TikTok is where I lose time. Right. So if it's like 115 and I'm thinking,

okay, let's see, I'll give this like an hour. I sometimes look up and it's close to two and I don't know where that 45 minutes went. That happens to me. But I do note when time goes by and again I wait for my eyes to get heavy but I don't lose the entire night just to scroll in. Rosie, you've got a little smirk on your face

because you've heard these stories before and I'm sure that you've had to tell your mom enough's enough here. But help me understand, have you seen your mom's relationship with her phone changed since she's retired. D has definitely become more dependent on her phone, but I wouldn't say that it's dependent in a negative way. I think that she uses it to structure her life in a very meaningful way.

So since we've transitioned to iPhones, and iPhones have become more and more practical and productive, my mom has actually leaned into that to learn how to use the tools. So not a time goes by whenever I'm with her, that she's not looking at her calendar on her phone to make sure that a particular appointment is going on or that she's scheduled something or she has a shopping list. So absolutely, I've seen that side of the phone relationship grow and develop. And I've also seen her lean to the phone in order to use tools to help herself stimulate her brain. So my mom

is the best candy crusher I know. She's at nearly level 18,000. Oh, wow. You know, it's very cool. And ultimately, it is a strategy game. And so she uses other ones as well, including particular word games, especially the New York Times puzzles, like Wordle, the mini connections, things like that. So she's using the games to A, both relax, and then also B, stimulate her brain and make sure that in her retirement where she's not thinking during work in, you know, in a work way anymore, there's still new challenges coming out every day. Does that sound? Well, what I want to say about that is that my daughter has heavily influenced my choices of games because she said,

Mom, I don't want you to lose your recall. So suddenly the New York Times shows up and all the words in, Mom, I want you to do the crossword every day. Mom, I want you to. and she's really helped me be mindful of not losing, not getting lost into games and scrolling. Rosie, why was that important to kind of feed your mom apps and games that you thought were, you know, appropriate or perhaps, you know, redirecting her? I think that my mom is one of the smartest people I know,

and she's very sharp and she's very fast. and it's been harder and harder for her to find things that stimulate her in the way that she needs. And I've also looked into studies on dementia and Alzheimer's, and I've come to see that the brain, just like any other muscle in your body, is a use it or lose it. So the more that you're using the brain, the more that you're developing new neural pathways and neural links, you are increasing the range of what you are possible of, as well as retaining what you've already built up to date. Marla, I hope you understand. How many hours do you think you spend in your phone throughout a day? Oh, there's no thinking involved. The phone tells you.

That's true. And it's between nine and ten hours a day. I'm not watching TV much anymore. If I watch it, I'll use the phone. Were you surprised by that number of them? Yes, I was. I was thinking three or four hours, maybe more. Ten hours?

What happened? I know I sleep sleep like six or seven hours, so I guess I don't use it a few hours of the day. I have to ask, are there, you know, your friends that you're talking to? Are there similar conversations about how dependent you are using your phone? Obviously, you've got some tools. You've got your daughter looking out for you as well, giving you all of these, you know, apps to help.

Number one, my daughter is my IT department. And right now, in Italy, she's my remote IT department, as she always will be. I am the most savvy on the phone than any of my friends. Some of them don't know how to use your GPS. Some of them don't know how to use the files. Some of them don't know how to use the camera. Some of them don't know. So we message each other in a simple way, but that's about it.

I imagine the roles have kind of changed in terms of, you know, being a, you know, a daughter and then kind of having to put on a parental hat a little bit. And I'm hoping you can help me understand here. Do you think there are enough resources out there to help older adults and seniors, or their adult children, rather, navigate healthy ways to you? their phones and sort of manage their screen time. Ultimately, I don't think so. And I can give you the reasons why.

So I understand that right now this conversation, this conversation mainly centers on children and teen use of phone and like overuse of phone. So a lot of resources have been developed to help parents of younger children start to tackle this issue and teach proper boundaries for screen time. However, the complicated part to this issue is that older adults have full agency. They're responsible for their own decisions. And so often they are either left to their own to figure out what they need best and if they don't have their children helping them or you have a lot of children like me who are starting to get a little bit older themselves and you have aging parents who want what's best for them and will have

help them as much as possible. But it's sometimes hard for older adults to relate to someone who's in their late 20s or 30s. So if we were to increase the resources for older adults, which I absolutely think that we should, I think the best way to go about doing that is to have older adults teaching other older adults how to do things. And it helps relate. It helps be, it helps when an older adult is able to explain something in their own words and at their own speed to someone who's a contemporary. And so the messaging can actually be more effective than just, you know, another 30-year-old saying, hey, you should do that thing because it's good for you.

And it's definitely a niche in the market that hasn't really been talked yet. These are reminding me of the conversations I have with my mom. With that being said, Marla, help me understand. Is there a message out there for older adults right now who might be listening or watching this and saying, you know what, I may have not necessarily an addiction, but I'm developing a bad habit here with my phone. And as someone who's navigated has the support of their daughter,

is there a message to them? Yeah, not to get lost in your phone. It's important to live life still. There's a lot of good life out there, and your phone could lead you to some great, places, but it's really best to, you have to put it down occasionally in the daylight hours, right? Marla, Rosie, I want to thank you so much for joining us on the rundown.

Appreciate it. Thank you so much for your insights as well. Oh, thank you. I love being here. TVO is always been a big part of my life. That's awesome. Thank you. Thank you so much for this opportunity.

It's been a pleasure to talk with you. So for Marla, a smartphone is a big way to stay connected and engaged. and she's certainly not alone. According to Advocacy Group AARP, formerly known as the American Association of Retired Persons, nine in ten people over 50 now own a smartphone. But here's what we want to understand. How much screen type is too much for older adults? What kind of impact can it have on the brain? And are there habits we should be watching out for? Great to have you on the program, Nicole Dahmer, Dr. Howard Chertkoe, and Kara Bresol-Boysman. Thank you so much. Really looking forward to.

to our conversation here. Nicole, I want to start with you. Nicole, you're an associate professor with the Department of Health, Aging, and Society at McMaster University. Help paint the picture for me. What are we seeing in terms of screen and smartphone use in senior and older adult populations? Definitely. Thanks, Jan. You know, for a long time, we saw older adults certainly as, I guess, lagging behind in terms of technology adoption, but in the recent decade, especially with, with, the advent of COVID, that certainly spurred older adults to start, I suppose, adopting technology at quite a rapid rate. And so we're now seeing the trends where older adults adoption and

engagement with everyday technology are almost needing other age groups as well. And we also need to remember that, you know, current older adult populations, they've been working with technologies for a long time in their everyday life and also in their paid work. And so they're an increasingly tech-savvy group, which sometimes counters some of the ageist tropes we have about older adults as kind of technophobic, for example. Dr. Tertko, as a cognitive neurologist, help me understand, is there a difference between healthy and unhealthy screen time? Well, that's right. Like any technology, use of screens on smartphones for older people can have a positive outcome or a negative outcome, because let's look at what we're trying to do.

We're trying to maintain brain health as people get older. And at Baycrest in Toronto, we have a dementia prevention center, the Kimmel Center, where we teach people four big things. Physical stimulation and exercise, if you're watching a screen, you may not be doing exercise, cognitive stimulation, challenging your brain. So that depends what you're doing with the screen. It can be a negative or it can be a positive if you're doing challenging things. social stimulation. For some older people, the screen is how they're connecting with the world,

seeing their children, their grandchildren. For others, it's a way to have them stay in their apartments and never see people. So that can have a very negative social impact. And finally, sleep is very important. People who are waking up in the middle of the night, looking at a blue screen for more than 30 minutes, you're ruining your sleep pattern, you're affecting your sleep. You're not going to get back to sleep. So it can have a negative effect on sleep. So it's the content. It's not just the technology itself. It's how people are using the technology. Dr. Turkle, can you give us a few more examples? I'm curious when we talk about unhealthy screen time. I am thinking of social media apps. I am thinking of the doom scroll.

Can you give me a few more examples that, you know, we talk about, you know, late at night, the blue light here, but is there any other kind of patterns when we talk about bad uses of screen time? Of course. So looking at YouTube and social media, these are not going to stimulate your brain cognitively. But there are people who do online games, they're playing chess, they're doing courses online. Their intellectual stimulation can come from the screen. And that can be a very effective way to keep challenging your brain as you get older. But obviously, searching YouTube, I mean, it's addictive. You can spend hours just having YouTube throw things at you.

You come away, you think, what did I see? You certainly didn't learn anything. So I think people have to choose wisely. And the social element, again, if the screen is keeping a person from getting out of their house, getting out of the apartment, seeing their friends and family, then it's going to be having a negative effect. If it's, on the other hand, the only way they can reach out because of physical limitation, they can't get out of their apartment. It can prevent loneliness.

My story I always hear from patients when they come and see me. They say, I haven't seen you in a year. And I say, well, wait a minute. We had a screen time together four months ago. They say, that doesn't count. So socially, looking at someone on the screen is not the same as being there face-to-face, touching them. So we have to encourage people get out of their apartments, out of their houses, meet people, interact face-to-face. Kara, since Media Smarts provides resources on digital and media literacy, help me with some recommendations.

So if someone who is stuck in a cycle of unhealthy screen time, what should they be doing? Yeah, we definitely have lots of resources to help people. I think the most important thing is to build realistic goals. As we've been hearing, you know, screen time in and of itself is a really poor marker of sort of health, well-being, and harm. So what we need to do is get at the root of why people are using screens and in what ways. And I think one of the most healthy and helpful inroads to have a conversation with someone who you might be worried is engaged in excessive screen use is to ask them, you know, what they're doing on their screen, to get at the heart of the sort of quality of experience that they're looking for,

to help them understand if that app or that tool is doing the thing that they want, you know, it to do for them, whether that's social interaction, whether that's learning, whether that's physical activity. Other things that can help is, you know, ensure that you're working with someone to set those reasonable goals. One of the most beneficial ways that we can mitigate excessive screen use is to hold each other accountable. And often, when it comes to older adults who could be living in isolation, that's increasingly hard to do. So whether it's a neighbor, a friend, you know, extended relative, to be able to, you know, set those reasonable goals and to hold each other accountable, the outcomes, the likelihood of those outcomes being successful are going to be

much higher. Dr. Chortko, help me understand how the brain works here a little bit when it comes to excessive screen use. What are we seeing with the brain? I think a lot of people, you know, a lot of older adults who have parents have some concerns when they think of dementia or, you know, Alzheimer's or, you know, depression in general. But what do we actually? seeing when it comes to the brain and excessive screen use. Sure. Well, it's football season. So I think of your brain as like the quarterback of your team. And you've got an onslaught of the other team, bad things, bad proteins, oxidative stress, changes in energy metabolism, assaulting your brain cells. Then you've got things protecting your

brain, what we call a cognitive reserve, brain resilience. So person has to think, what can I do to prevent the onslaught of bad things, for example, avoiding head injuries, wearing helmets when you're a kid bicycling, avoiding toxins like alcohol and sleeping pills, those decrease the bad things. And what can you do to increase your cognitive reserve? Learning another language, cognitive stimulation, exercise. The most important thing seems to be exercise gives you chemicals in the neurons which preserve their function. So of all the bad things from a screen, the worse is if it prevents you from getting your exercise.

And then there's your genetics, what you inherit from your parents, that makes your brain more or less resilient to the onslaught of these changes of aging that many of them we cannot prevent. Nicole, there is a balancing act that needs to happen here when we talk about screen use, but also, you know, as Kara had mentioned, battling loneliness and the need for connection. How do we do that? I think it's a bit of a tricky line, I suppose, to walk.

You know, what's so interesting is that socially, we're really painting technology as the solution for so many of the, quote-unquote, problems of aging. Throw an app at something, maybe put a sensor in the home to make sure mom and dad are moving around or have gotten up, you know, okay in the morning. And then we're somehow faulting them for spending too much time with technology when we're giving gifts of technology. And also, it seems like the only way to be able to participate in society now is to

really be online. We have fewer bank tellers, for example, or fewer cashiers that we're able to interact with. you know, so many government forms, for example, are only accessible online. And so I think sometimes we need to step back and look at a bit of a broader picture to really question, well, why are we spending so much time online? Not only older adults, but across the life course. And I think it's because we're being directed and funneled, I suppose, in a way there. And so I think it takes a bit of a broader concerted effort to be able to walk that balance, especially when it's not necessarily an individual fault for spending time online.

It needs to be a bit more of a socially, politically, economically kind of constructed solution together. Kara, your organization has developed tons of resources not only for children or parents trying to teach their children about healthy screen time and smartphone use. But I'm curious, are you finding that adult children actually need those resources for their parents now? Yeah, I think we're seeing a definite increase need in conversations about screen use with older adults in particular. As we've been talking about, this is a generation of older adults

that are very comfortable with technology use, but it doesn't mean that they don't need to continue to develop those skills. Digital literacy and the skills to use technology critically and confidently, that's a lifelong skill set. And with the onset of changes in technology, new technology like AI and how that impacts things like the information ecosystem

and where we actually actually access services like Nicole was saying, but also where we get our information, those are massive changes that require a lot of supports. And how we support older adults, you know, while it's interesting, the vulnerabilities of older adults are in some ways similar to younger adults. How we support older adults is different. So it does require, you know, a different approach. You know, we don't want to infantilize older adults. We want to counter a lot of those ages stereotypes about older adults and technology use. And we don't want to shame and blame either. You know, we want to find inroads where we can have open communication and make sure that people feel supported. And that's

particularly challenging for, you know, a demographic of the population that in many ways can feel isolated. So I think there is a lot of work to do to ensure that we are finding ways to reach older adults in community. Nicole, do you think we're prepared at this moment to deal with older adults and seniors using their devices to excessive limits. I see you smiling. I think I know the answer here. I find the notion of dealing with really a little bit of using. I think so because to be honest, I don't think it's any different than any other age group.

We're all grappling with tech overuse. I spend too much time on my phone at night when I know I should leave it outside the bedroom. So I think it's already happening. And so it's a matter of maybe as Kara so beautifully was kind of saying, it's really of meeting them where they're at, recognizing that some of the younger cohorts of older adults are just as tech savvy as kind of any other age group because they've had to work with technology. And they've seen the evolution of so many different technological tools.

I guess I would say the importance that is not painting older adults as this homogeneous group, then recognizing that there's a lot of diversity in a, you know, in a 40-year kind of age group population as well. And so developing maybe different tools or techniques to reach them requires a bit of finessing and recognition of that diversity. Dr. Turko, help me understand, could we be doing more as a society here? Are there enough resources available right now? Well, I think our society overall is one side. doing more for older people. On the other side, just trying to fit them in with the younger people. For example, try going to a store and finding a smartphone geared for older individuals with arthritis in their fingers.

You won't find them. Try to find apps which are geared for older people, very difficult to find. Technology at Baycrest, we're trying to develop technology for the elderly. But generally, the social imperative seems to be fit in, squeeze in older people with the younger. But older people have specific means physically and emotionally. And the most important need that I think we're not meeting with technology is that one of the big factors in how you age is, I mentioned loneliness, exercise, social involvement, a sense of meaning in your life. People who say they don't have a purpose in life are much more likely. to go on and develop dementia.

So what are we doing as a society to help integrate people after they retire and help them establish a purpose in life? This is an individual thing, but it's also the social thing. Outlets for older people to meaningfully contribute to help society are very limited. So my advice to patients is always

see what's going to give you a sense of meaning in life, a connection, and is going on your tablet or your smartphone, giving you a sense of sharing and community and a meeting in your life, or is it just wasting your time? Ultimately, these are going to be what determined whether you're benefiting or not. Kara, I'm going to get you to follow up on that. What could we be doing more? Well, I think there's lots of different programming that we need to be offering. I love the suggestions of developing apps with the needs of older adults in mind. I think that's critically important. I also think we need to bolster the educational component here.

So different programs that target older adults in a variety of different needs, including the ways in which older adults are targeted for things like fraud and scams. There's a huge need for that. And for the most part, you sort of offloaded that work onto the sort of front lines of bank tellers and other sort of cybersecurity experts who are not necessarily aware of or trained to support older adults, nor are they trained in providing educational support. It's important and we need that and we're grateful for the work to sort of intercept that, but there's this whole other sort of avenue of educational support that needs to happen.

And I think that there's a lot of important critical community work happening in senior centers and community centers to make sure that older adults feel confident to be able to do things like bank safely, connect with their families in ways that are meaningful, make sure that they're making some of those choices we've been talking about today about their technologies that feels like it's going to be impactful and positive in their lives. And being able to make those choices requires that you have the skills and the critical competencies to use technology in a way to have that positive impact in your life. Kara, Nicole, Dr. Turko, I want to thank you so much for your insights on this conversation. I'm sure this will be a conversation. We will

revisit. Thank you so much. Thank you. Have you ever talked to an older friend or relative about screen time or healthy internet habits? And if you are an older adult, how much do you use a phone, tablet or computer? And what do you use it for? Let us know in the comments or send us an email to rundown at tbio.org. Until then, I will see you tomorrow. You're not imagining it. Historically, women's health has been under-researched and underfunded.

Did you know it took until the 90s for ADHD and girls to be studied? and it can take decades to be diagnosed with endometriosis. How did we get here? This season on mistreated, we're exploring that and more. And speaking to those working on solutions, I'm Nam Kiwanuka. Watch mistreated Thursdays at 8.30 p.m. on TVO, listen to the podcast or stream us anytime.