People in the fifties went from coming home to dinner with their entire family to dining together in front of a TV screen. It must've been very scary; people must've thought TV was mind-numbing, and that it had everybody hypnotized. And it did; housewives had it on all day, and entire living rooms got refurnished to fit large TVs.
Suddenly, it became normal for us, and TVs became part of any family's day-to-day life. Nobody moralized about its consumption anymore, except for some relative restrictions for children.
I think the same is happening with AI-made content. It's created to be extremely addictive, and almost no humans are involved in the process- only highly specific data all of us gave to the machine to learn what we like and what we would spend more time watching.
Retired or bored people are the best targets for this content. Most AI slop content manipulates your emotions just like soap operas did before, but in a more curated, perverse way.
Its short-form content makes it even harder to stop; you just lie there and scroll to the next video, saying it will be the last. Frankly, I've been there; luckily, it didn't become my life because I had more important things to do, but trust me, if I were bored, I'd be completely hooked.
I suppose the only solution to problems like this is other people; even if you have to force it, companionship distances us from vices like this. Sadly, a lot of elderly people are very lonely, and in those conditions it's very easy to become addicted to trash content online.
Luckily, this lady has a son who cares about her enough to worry and wonder what to do. Do you think he should do anything? Have you experienced this with your loved ones?