In Lin Miao’s eyes, her smartphone is the window through which her 73-year-old grandmother peers out at the world. But this window isn’t always bright—sometimes it’s choked with digital garbage, brutally blocking her grandmother’s clumsy, cautious attempts to connect.

Her grandmother, Liu Huiqin, is a retired factory worker living alone in a small county town in Weinan, Shaanxi Province. Since her husband passed away seven or eight years ago, she has lived by herself.

Life moves slowly and repetitively. To pass the time, she’s grown accustomed to using her phone: curled up on the sofa scrolling through short videos; in the mornings, placing her phone on the edge of the sink while washing her face, blasting audio from a drama series so loudly that she can make out the dialogue through the sound of rushing water—even with her eyes closed.

Nights are the hardest. As she’s aged, her sleep has become fragmented. She often jolts awake in the dead of night, surrounded by silence. Rolling over, she fumbles for her phone beside the pillow, lights up the screen to check the time, then resumes the short drama she fell asleep watching.

But without warning, an ad pops up—filling the entire screen.

The story stops dead. Liu Huiqin squints, stabbing randomly at the screen, but can never quite hit the tiny “X” button. Soon, after one accidental tap, unfamiliar apps begin flooding her phone. The night stretches even longer.

Every time Lin Miao—a university student studying away from home—returns to visit, she finds a dozen or more unused app icons cluttering her grandmother’s phone. In her battles against these stubborn pop-ups, she feels a dull, quiet ache: elderly people who long to see and be seen have, under the algorithm’s gaze, become targets for exploitation and extraction.

As of mid-2025, China has 161 million internet users aged 60 and above. Many of them endure daily bombardments of intrusive ads—like a metastasizing cancer. They’ve been molded into user profiles specifically attractive to predatory advertisers, priced in digital marketplaces, and stripped of the dignity of choice.

1. Elderly Phones: Breeding Grounds for Adware

Liu Huiqin’s first smartphone was a birthday gift from her daughter in 2021—costing around 2,000 RMB. She didn’t say much, but Lin Miao sensed her quiet joy.

That joy was subtle, yet unmistakable. For once, her grandmother—who usually insisted on “suffering unnecessarily”—sat quietly like a child, listening intently as Lin Miao taught her how to use the phone. She absorbed every function, every step, wide-eyed and unresisting.

Her learning curve was steep. She had to write down instructions by hand: “First tap this, then tap that.” Slowly, she learned to like posts on WeChat Moments, forward holiday greetings, and eventually watch short videos. Lin Miao downloaded a short-drama app for her—and suddenly, a whole new world opened up.

Lin Miao was glad her grandmother finally had more ways to entertain herself. Before, she could only watch CCTV during prime time. If she missed an episode, she couldn’t catch up—she didn’t know how to use on-demand TV and could only flip channels helplessly. Now, with a phone, she had choices.

Elderly users often carry their lifelong habits into the digital age. Cheng Cheng, who lives in Suzhou, gave her 85-year-old grandfather an old smartphone years ago. In his youth, he’d been a logistics soldier who loved reading newspapers and following current affairs. Now, Cheng Cheng taught him to read free novels and browse news apps.

The new technology became his cloud—like Sun Wukong’s somersault cloud. He placed a small stool on the balcony, and in his leisure hours, sat there soaking in the sun, “commanding” global events with a few taps.

But it’s precisely these most-used apps that quietly betray them.

Their peaceful moments are constantly interrupted by aggressive ad pop-ups. Short-video apps, free novels, news readers, health trackers, casual games, weather forecasts—icons that seem harmless quietly run in the background, spitting out relentless ads.

These ads are masters of disguise. On Liu Huiqin’s phone, pop-ups often claim: “Phone storage full! Clean now!” She believes them—even when her storage is less than half full—and clicks through, unknowingly downloading piles of junk apps.

She once played a simple match-3 game called “Eliminate Stars,” but gradually stopped. Why? Because the ads were endless and impossible to close. “Eliminate Stars” became an unwinnable “Eliminate Ads”—and the game lost all its fun.

Older users don’t just struggle to see—they also struggle to discern.

Once, Liu Huiqin pointed to a pop-up and said to Lin Miao, “Look—it says it’ll give me 100 yuan if I claim it quickly!” Lin Miao warned her it was a scam, but her grandmother’s eyes still held a flicker of hope. She pushed the phone closer, as if begging her granddaughter to say, “It’s real.”

To protect him, Cheng Cheng enabled “senior mode” on her grandfather’s phone, leaving only a few essential apps on the home screen. But embedded ads remained traps. He kept tapping accidentally, and soon, multiple screens filled with auto-downloaded junk software.

When Cheng Cheng discovered it, her grandfather just smiled sheepishly, repeating, “I don’t understand… I didn’t know…”

He couldn’t tell ads apart from useful content. Helpless, Cheng Cheng resorted to weeding out digital weeds—cleaning his phone once or twice a week.

For Jiefan, who lives in Malaysia, the problem is even more acute. Pop-up ads have severely disrupted his 70-something mother’s phone calls. Mid-conversation, an ad would suddenly blast through, drowning out the other person’s voice—leaving her confused and helpless.

She uses a popular Chinese-brand smartphone in her region. In August, she told her son the phone “seemed infected—completely unusable,” and wanted to take it to a repair shop. Jiefan checked: whether calling or browsing, every few minutes a full-screen, unskippable video ad would force its way in, instantly redirecting to download unknown apps. His mother said dozens of apps had mysteriously appeared in the past month. Each ad lasted 30–60 seconds, looping endlessly, often luring clicks with fake red envelopes.

There are countless unspoken embarrassments. On social media, many share stories of elderly relatives standing in line at banks, hospitals, or subway gates—trying to scan a QR code—when their phone suddenly “goes berserk.” Under the stares of strangers, they fumble in panic, cheeks burning, unable to tame this unruly electronic beast.

2. The Grandchildren’s War Against “Pop-Up Cancer”

While elders feel lost and overwhelmed, their children and grandchildren wage a long, exhausting battle against these pop-ups—regularly inspecting phones, performing deep cleans, and scouring online forums for solutions.

For Lin Miao, cleaning her grandmother’s phone has become an unspoken ritual every time she visits home. Deleting junk apps isn’t hard—the real toll is the endless repetition. She must summon extra patience, again and again teaching her grandmother how to spot the close button, how to go back, how to ignore “free money” or “you’ve won!” pop-ups. Fearful of scams, she collects the latest fraud cases—AI voice cloning, deepfake videos—and explains them in painstaking detail.

She’s tried everything: disabling personalized ads, turning off app notifications, shutting down the phone manufacturer’s ad system, enabling senior mode, restricting app installation permissions, uninstalling “cleaner” apps, WiFi key apps, free novel readers—all high-risk culprits. Yet the results are fleeting. Soon enough, the digital weeds grow back thicker than before.

Jiefan’s campaign felt more like surgery. After studying guides, he began “diagnosing” his mother’s phone: first disabling all app installation permissions, then uninstalling every auto-downloaded app, then hunting for the source by checking background data usage—tracking abnormal battery drain and data spikes. It took two to three hours of trial and error, but he finally traced it to a casual mobile game his mother often played. After losing, she’d been tempted by a “watch ad to revive” prompt—and accidentally tapped a hidden download link. The malware disguised itself as system apps like “App Store” or “Application Center,” making detection harder. When he finally purged it, Jiefan sighed in relief—his mother’s phone was quiet again.

Some guides even reveal that certain malicious apps wear “invisibility cloaks,” hiding in blank spaces on the home screen, silently launching ads. Ordinary users never notice them. Only by long-pressing every empty spot—like carpet-bombing the interface—can you sometimes expose their presence.

Young people have become lifelines for older users. Strangers—middle-aged or elderly—often stop them on the street, asking for help with their phones.

Wu Ke, who lives in an old residential compound, has become the neighborhood’s unofficial “phone consultant.” Whenever grandparents encounter issues, they knock on her door. In early November, an elderly man from upstairs came for help—his phone was drowning in a barrage of pop-ups. Close one, another instantly appeared.

It took her great effort to clear seven or eight layers of ads. After some research, she suspected a shopping app was the culprit. Just as she was about to uninstall it, the grandfather stopped her: “This one lets me watch videos to earn points—I can exchange them for things later!”

Wu Ke opened it—and her heart sank. The “videos” never loaded. What the elderly man watched every day was pure advertising. The accumulating “coins” could never be redeemed; the app had no backend at all—just a hollow shell designed to harvest ad revenue.

“These developers are making dirty money off vulnerable seniors,” Wu Ke said.

She told Fenghuang Weekly’s Eye of the Storm, “This grandfather is in his late 70s—a retired university math professor—and even he fell for these smartphone tricks.”

3. Who Sold Grandma’s Profile?

Lin Miao paid close attention to which apps kept sneaking onto her grandmother’s phone—navigation tools, search engines, news apps. “Even apps like AutoNavi or Baidu Maps, which she never uses, keep reappearing after I delete them,” she said.

Through online research, she learned these ads are mostly promotional tactics by app developers to boost downloads. The free short dramas and novels her grandmother enjoys survive solely on ad revenue. “They simply don’t care about user experience,” she said.

Another major source is “Quick Apps.” In 2018, nine major Chinese smartphone makers—including Huawei, Xiaomi, OPPO, and vivo—launched the “Quick App” platform, originally meant to offer seamless, instant-use experiences. But it quickly became a breeding ground for pop-up ads.

As hundreds of millions of elderly users are swept into the smartphone era, they are reduced to consumption profiles in digital systems. It appears they’re using phones—but in reality, they’ve become precision-targeted ad-viewing machines. Their desire for convenience has become a commodity to be auctioned.

Cheng Cheng understands this more clearly. She once worked for a company that operated the very news app her grandfather uses. “Those full-screen and ‘shake-to-open’ ads are mostly brand placements,” she explained.

Her former employer handled mostly food and furniture brands. Advertisers provided creative assets; the platform decided timing, regions, and targeting strategies. Cheng Cheng told Eye of the Storm that targeting wasn’t just based on user-provided age info—it also analyzed behavioral patterns to pinpoint demographics.

“I guess, in a way, I was the one who投放 ads to my own grandfather,” she joked—then paused. “But honestly, that company focused on conversion, not just clicks or downloads, so they rarely used deceptive tactics to trick seniors.”

What Cheng Cheng didn’t realize is that the ad ecosystem targeting her grandfather is far more complex.

Cybersecurity expert Wang Zhen told Eye of the Storm that the reason these apps are “free” is because they’re packed with ad modules. Every time an elder opens the app, an ad pops up—and the developer earns a few cents. Some ads even persist via notification banners after the app is closed.

Another overlooked source is the phone’s operating system itself. Many domestic smartphones embed ads in preinstalled apps—news feeds, weather widgets, even calendars. Fake delivery notices or bank alerts in SMS messages often lead directly to ad pages.

Wang Zhen explained that these ads find seniors so precisely because of a highly efficient automated system. For example, when an elderly woman opens a weather app, her device instantly reports metadata. Within 0.1 seconds, the system tags her based on phone model, font size, usage habits: “elderly,” “health-conscious.” Then, an invisible auction begins: health supplement sellers, financial product vendors bid in real time for the chance to show their ad. The highest bidder wins—and appears on her screen in a blink.

In fact, China’s 2021 “General Design Guidelines for Internet Accessibility for Older Adults” explicitly prohibit ads, plugins, or temporary pop-ups in senior-friendly interfaces or dedicated elderly apps. They also ban诱导 (deceptive) buttons that trick users into downloading or paying.

Major phone makers have responded with “Senior Care,” “Pure Mode,” or “Simple Mode” features. But their impact remains limited.

“Because the mobile internet’s ‘free + ads’ business model hasn’t changed,” Wang Zhen said. Free apps rely on ad revenue, and advertisers actively target seniors—people with ample free time and lower digital literacy—as a key growth market.

4. “They’re Also Experiencing Aging for the First Time”

Since getting a smartphone, Lin Miao has noticed subtle changes in her grandmother.

Before 2021, Liu Huiqin used a basic “elder phone”—only calling family when absolutely necessary. Reserved by nature, she’d never dial just to say “I miss you.”

But with a smartphone, she became almost unrecognizable. Offline, she remained restrained—brushing off concern with a wave: “I’m fine.” But on WeChat, she transformed into an emotionally expressive chatterbox. When Lin Miao casually mentioned, “The heating’s too strong lately,” her grandmother would send a long voice message: “Drink more water! Put a basin of water by your bed at night!”

Lin Miao now messages her grandmother every other day—hoping to ease her loneliness.

Liu Huiqin lives in a community near her old workplace, sandwiched between two county towns. Over the years, neighbors have moved away, leaving behind an aging enclave—forgotten by time. Unlike city seniors who gather in parks, her world is confined to this quiet, emptying courtyard.

Her body imposes another limit. She’s developed common age-related conditions—diabetes, hypertension, risk of stroke—and her legs have weakened. Climbing stairs is difficult. Most days, she stays downstairs, playing mahjong with a few equally slowed-down friends. That’s a full day.

Lin Miao noticed her grandmother quietly creating purpose for herself. At first, she disliked her sister’s little dog, grumbling, “Can’t even take care of people—why raise a dog?” But gradually, the dog became hers. She feeds it daily—steamed sweet potatoes, boiled eggs—always setting aside a small portion.

Witnessing these changes, Lin Miao grew even more convinced: the phone is her grandmother’s lifeline to connection and meaning. Through it, she joins her grandchildren’s world, asserts her existence, and maintains a sense of control over time and dignity in the face of the unfamiliar—until low-quality, deceptive content floods in, eroding those efforts in an instant.

Compared to Liu Huiqin, Cheng Cheng’s grandfather has more family around him. Yet he, too, faces the quiet decay of aging. He used to enjoy chess and chats in the park, but many old friends have passed away, and the rest rarely come downstairs anymore.

He resists new things. When smartphones became mainstream, Cheng Cheng urged him to switch to a touchscreen—but he’d mutter, “Buttons are easier.” When ads overran his phone, all he could do was sigh repeatedly: “I’m old… so old…”

“Aging is something no one can fight or fix,” Cheng Cheng told Eye of the Storm. “Everyone just has to accept it. I think society hasn’t given seniors enough psychological support. Just as everyone is experiencing childhood for the first time, everyone is also experiencing aging for the first time.”

To her grandfather, spam ads aren’t just a tech or economic issue—they’re a question of existence.

He’s over 80, yet still hasn’t truly learned how to accept aging. A few months ago, he was hospitalized with severe pneumonia, slipped into a coma in the ICU—and his phone hasn’t lit up since.

Recently, Lin Miao started saving her scholarship money to buy her grandmother a new phone. She wants larger fonts—much larger. She also hopes it integrates a flashlight—not just a software toggle, but a physical slider that turns the light on and off with a swipe.

Fewer residents mean the property management turns off courtyard lights early each night. Winter nights are long, and Liu Huiqin—already unsteady on her feet—likes walking the garden path lined with slippery pebbles. Lin Miao worries constantly she’ll fall in the dark.

She’s bought her grandmother a standalone flashlight, but Grandma always forgets to carry it. Like most people, she underestimated how any “extra” item becomes a burden for the elderly. And the phone’s built-in flashlight is too hard to find—and easy to leave on.

Most importantly, she wants a phone completely free of pop-up ads—one that offers seniors peace of mind.

Lin Miao has listed her requirements meticulously. Yet no such phone exists on the market. She once bought “elderly shoes” for her grandmother—nothing fancy, but at least the marketing acknowledged seniors’ needs.

“But so-called ‘elder phones’ or ‘senior modes’ are mostly just simplified smartphones with a few shortcut buttons,” she said. “They don’t truly understand what aging feels like.”

In Lin Miao’s eyes, her smartphone is the window through which her 73-year-old grandmother peers out at the world. But this window isn’t always bright—sometimes it’s choked with digital garbage, brutally blocking her grandmother’s clumsy, cautious attempts to connect.

Her grandmother, Liu Huiqin, is a retired factory worker living alone in a small county town in Weinan, Shaanxi Province. Since her husband passed away seven or eight years ago, she has lived by herself.

Life moves slowly and repetitively. To pass the time, she’s grown accustomed to using her phone: curled up on the sofa scrolling through short videos; in the mornings, placing her phone on the edge of the sink while washing her face, blasting audio from a drama series so loudly that she can make out the dialogue through the sound of rushing water—even with her eyes closed.

Nights are the hardest. As she’s aged, her sleep has become fragmented. She often jolts awake in the dead of night, surrounded by silence. Rolling over, she fumbles for her phone beside the pillow, lights up the screen to check the time, then resumes the short drama she fell asleep watching.

But without warning, an ad pops up—filling the entire screen.

The story stops dead. Liu Huiqin squints, stabbing randomly at the screen, but can never quite hit the tiny “X” button. Soon, after one accidental tap, unfamiliar apps begin flooding her phone. The night stretches even longer.

Every time Lin Miao—a university student studying away from home—returns to visit, she finds a dozen or more unused app icons cluttering her grandmother’s phone. In her battles against these stubborn pop-ups, she feels a dull, quiet ache: elderly people who long to see and be seen have, under the algorithm’s gaze, become targets for exploitation and extraction.

As of mid-2025, China has 161 million internet users aged 60 and above. Many of them endure daily bombardments of intrusive ads—like a metastasizing cancer. They’ve been molded into user profiles specifically attractive to predatory advertisers, priced in digital marketplaces, and stripped of the dignity of choice.

1. Elderly Phones: Breeding Grounds for Adware

Liu Huiqin’s first smartphone was a birthday gift from her daughter in 2021—costing around 2,000 RMB. She didn’t say much, but Lin Miao sensed her quiet joy.

That joy was subtle, yet unmistakable. For once, her grandmother—who usually insisted on “suffering unnecessarily”—sat quietly like a child, listening intently as Lin Miao taught her how to use the phone. She absorbed every function, every step, wide-eyed and unresisting.

Her learning curve was steep. She had to write down instructions by hand: “First tap this, then tap that.” Slowly, she learned to like posts on WeChat Moments, forward holiday greetings, and eventually watch short videos. Lin Miao downloaded a short-drama app for her—and suddenly, a whole new world opened up.

Lin Miao was glad her grandmother finally had more ways to entertain herself. Before, she could only watch CCTV during prime time. If she missed an episode, she couldn’t catch up—she didn’t know how to use on-demand TV and could only flip channels helplessly. Now, with a phone, she had choices.

Elderly users often carry their lifelong habits into the digital age. Cheng Cheng, who lives in Suzhou, gave her 85-year-old grandfather an old smartphone years ago. In his youth, he’d been a logistics soldier who loved reading newspapers and following current affairs. Now, Cheng Cheng taught him to read free novels and browse news apps.

The new technology became his cloud—like Sun Wukong’s somersault cloud. He placed a small stool on the balcony, and in his leisure hours, sat there soaking in the sun, “commanding” global events with a few taps.

But it’s precisely these most-used apps that quietly betray them.

Their peaceful moments are constantly interrupted by aggressive ad pop-ups. Short-video apps, free novels, news readers, health trackers, casual games, weather forecasts—icons that seem harmless quietly run in the background, spitting out relentless ads.

These ads are masters of disguise. On Liu Huiqin’s phone, pop-ups often claim: “Phone storage full! Clean now!” She believes them—even when her storage is less than half full—and clicks through, unknowingly downloading piles of junk apps.

She once played a simple match-3 game called “Eliminate Stars,” but gradually stopped. Why? Because the ads were endless and impossible to close. “Eliminate Stars” became an unwinnable “Eliminate Ads”—and the game lost all its fun.

Older users don’t just struggle to see—they also struggle to discern.

Once, Liu Huiqin pointed to a pop-up and said to Lin Miao, “Look—it says it’ll give me 100 yuan if I claim it quickly!” Lin Miao warned her it was a scam, but her grandmother’s eyes still held a flicker of hope. She pushed the phone closer, as if begging her granddaughter to say, “It’s real.”

To protect him, Cheng Cheng enabled “senior mode” on her grandfather’s phone, leaving only a few essential apps on the home screen. But embedded ads remained traps. He kept tapping accidentally, and soon, multiple screens filled with auto-downloaded junk software.

When Cheng Cheng discovered it, her grandfather just smiled sheepishly, repeating, “I don’t understand… I didn’t know…”

He couldn’t tell ads apart from useful content. Helpless, Cheng Cheng resorted to weeding out digital weeds—cleaning his phone once or twice a week.

For Jiefan, who lives in Malaysia, the problem is even more acute. Pop-up ads have severely disrupted his 70-something mother’s phone calls. Mid-conversation, an ad would suddenly blast through, drowning out the other person’s voice—leaving her confused and helpless.

She uses a popular Chinese-brand smartphone in her region. In August, she told her son the phone “seemed infected—completely unusable,” and wanted to take it to a repair shop. Jiefan checked: whether calling or browsing, every few minutes a full-screen, unskippable video ad would force its way in, instantly redirecting to download unknown apps. His mother said dozens of apps had mysteriously appeared in the past month. Each ad lasted 30–60 seconds, looping endlessly, often luring clicks with fake red envelopes.

There are countless unspoken embarrassments. On social media, many share stories of elderly relatives standing in line at banks, hospitals, or subway gates—trying to scan a QR code—when their phone suddenly “goes berserk.” Under the stares of strangers, they fumble in panic, cheeks burning, unable to tame this unruly electronic beast.

2. The Grandchildren’s War Against “Pop-Up Cancer”

While elders feel lost and overwhelmed, their children and grandchildren wage a long, exhausting battle against these pop-ups—regularly inspecting phones, performing deep cleans, and scouring online forums for solutions.

For Lin Miao, cleaning her grandmother’s phone has become an unspoken ritual every time she visits home. Deleting junk apps isn’t hard—the real toll is the endless repetition. She must summon extra patience, again and again teaching her grandmother how to spot the close button, how to go back, how to ignore “free money” or “you’ve won!” pop-ups. Fearful of scams, she collects the latest fraud cases—AI voice cloning, deepfake videos—and explains them in painstaking detail.

She’s tried everything: disabling personalized ads, turning off app notifications, shutting down the phone manufacturer’s ad system, enabling senior mode, restricting app installation permissions, uninstalling “cleaner” apps, WiFi key apps, free novel readers—all high-risk culprits. Yet the results are fleeting. Soon enough, the digital weeds grow back thicker than before.

Jiefan’s campaign felt more like surgery. After studying guides, he began “diagnosing” his mother’s phone: first disabling all app installation permissions, then uninstalling every auto-downloaded app, then hunting for the source by checking background data usage—tracking abnormal battery drain and data spikes. It took two to three hours of trial and error, but he finally traced it to a casual mobile game his mother often played. After losing, she’d been tempted by a “watch ad to revive” prompt—and accidentally tapped a hidden download link. The malware disguised itself as system apps like “App Store” or “Application Center,” making detection harder. When he finally purged it, Jiefan sighed in relief—his mother’s phone was quiet again.

Some guides even reveal that certain malicious apps wear “invisibility cloaks,” hiding in blank spaces on the home screen, silently launching ads. Ordinary users never notice them. Only by long-pressing every empty spot—like carpet-bombing the interface—can you sometimes expose their presence.

Young people have become lifelines for older users. Strangers—middle-aged or elderly—often stop them on the street, asking for help with their phones.

Wu Ke, who lives in an old residential compound, has become the neighborhood’s unofficial “phone consultant.” Whenever grandparents encounter issues, they knock on her door. In early November, an elderly man from upstairs came for help—his phone was drowning in a barrage of pop-ups. Close one, another instantly appeared.

It took her great effort to clear seven or eight layers of ads. After some research, she suspected a shopping app was the culprit. Just as she was about to uninstall it, the grandfather stopped her: “This one lets me watch videos to earn points—I can exchange them for things later!”

Wu Ke opened it—and her heart sank. The “videos” never loaded. What the elderly man watched every day was pure advertising. The accumulating “coins” could never be redeemed; the app had no backend at all—just a hollow shell designed to harvest ad revenue.

“These developers are making dirty money off vulnerable seniors,” Wu Ke said.

She told Fenghuang Weekly’s Eye of the Storm, “This grandfather is in his late 70s—a retired university math professor—and even he fell for these smartphone tricks.”

3. Who Sold Grandma’s Profile?

Lin Miao paid close attention to which apps kept sneaking onto her grandmother’s phone—navigation tools, search engines, news apps. “Even apps like AutoNavi or Baidu Maps, which she never uses, keep reappearing after I delete them,” she said.

Through online research, she learned these ads are mostly promotional tactics by app developers to boost downloads. The free short dramas and novels her grandmother enjoys survive solely on ad revenue. “They simply don’t care about user experience,” she said.

Another major source is “Quick Apps.” In 2018, nine major Chinese smartphone makers—including Huawei, Xiaomi, OPPO, and vivo—launched the “Quick App” platform, originally meant to offer seamless, instant-use experiences. But it quickly became a breeding ground for pop-up ads.

As hundreds of millions of elderly users are swept into the smartphone era, they are reduced to consumption profiles in digital systems. It appears they’re using phones—but in reality, they’ve become precision-targeted ad-viewing machines. Their desire for convenience has become a commodity to be auctioned.

Cheng Cheng understands this more clearly. She once worked for a company that operated the very news app her grandfather uses. “Those full-screen and ‘shake-to-open’ ads are mostly brand placements,” she explained.

Her former employer handled mostly food and furniture brands. Advertisers provided creative assets; the platform decided timing, regions, and targeting strategies. Cheng Cheng told Eye of the Storm that targeting wasn’t just based on user-provided age info—it also analyzed behavioral patterns to pinpoint demographics.

“I guess, in a way, I was the one who投放 ads to my own grandfather,” she joked—then paused. “But honestly, that company focused on conversion, not just clicks or downloads, so they rarely used deceptive tactics to trick seniors.”

What Cheng Cheng didn’t realize is that the ad ecosystem targeting her grandfather is far more complex.

Cybersecurity expert Wang Zhen told Eye of the Storm that the reason these apps are “free” is because they’re packed with ad modules. Every time an elder opens the app, an ad pops up—and the developer earns a few cents. Some ads even persist via notification banners after the app is closed.

Another overlooked source is the phone’s operating system itself. Many domestic smartphones embed ads in preinstalled apps—news feeds, weather widgets, even calendars. Fake delivery notices or bank alerts in SMS messages often lead directly to ad pages.

Wang Zhen explained that these ads find seniors so precisely because of a highly efficient automated system. For example, when an elderly woman opens a weather app, her device instantly reports metadata. Within 0.1 seconds, the system tags her based on phone model, font size, usage habits: “elderly,” “health-conscious.” Then, an invisible auction begins: health supplement sellers, financial product vendors bid in real time for the chance to show their ad. The highest bidder wins—and appears on her screen in a blink.

In fact, China’s 2021 “General Design Guidelines for Internet Accessibility for Older Adults” explicitly prohibit ads, plugins, or temporary pop-ups in senior-friendly interfaces or dedicated elderly apps. They also ban诱导 (deceptive) buttons that trick users into downloading or paying.

Major phone makers have responded with “Senior Care,” “Pure Mode,” or “Simple Mode” features. But their impact remains limited.

“Because the mobile internet’s ‘free + ads’ business model hasn’t changed,” Wang Zhen said. Free apps rely on ad revenue, and advertisers actively target seniors—people with ample free time and lower digital literacy—as a key growth market.

4. “They’re Also Experiencing Aging for the First Time”

Since getting a smartphone, Lin Miao has noticed subtle changes in her grandmother.

Before 2021, Liu Huiqin used a basic “elder phone”—only calling family when absolutely necessary. Reserved by nature, she’d never dial just to say “I miss you.”

But with a smartphone, she became almost unrecognizable. Offline, she remained restrained—brushing off concern with a wave: “I’m fine.” But on WeChat, she transformed into an emotionally expressive chatterbox. When Lin Miao casually mentioned, “The heating’s too strong lately,” her grandmother would send a long voice message: “Drink more water! Put a basin of water by your bed at night!”

Lin Miao now messages her grandmother every other day—hoping to ease her loneliness.

Liu Huiqin lives in a community near her old workplace, sandwiched between two county towns. Over the years, neighbors have moved away, leaving behind an aging enclave—forgotten by time. Unlike city seniors who gather in parks, her world is confined to this quiet, emptying courtyard.

Her body imposes another limit. She’s developed common age-related conditions—diabetes, hypertension, risk of stroke—and her legs have weakened. Climbing stairs is difficult. Most days, she stays downstairs, playing mahjong with a few equally slowed-down friends. That’s a full day.

Lin Miao noticed her grandmother quietly creating purpose for herself. At first, she disliked her sister’s little dog, grumbling, “Can’t even take care of people—why raise a dog?” But gradually, the dog became hers. She feeds it daily—steamed sweet potatoes, boiled eggs—always setting aside a small portion.

Witnessing these changes, Lin Miao grew even more convinced: the phone is her grandmother’s lifeline to connection and meaning. Through it, she joins her grandchildren’s world, asserts her existence, and maintains a sense of control over time and dignity in the face of the unfamiliar—until low-quality, deceptive content floods in, eroding those efforts in an instant.

Compared to Liu Huiqin, Cheng Cheng’s grandfather has more family around him. Yet he, too, faces the quiet decay of aging. He used to enjoy chess and chats in the park, but many old friends have passed away, and the rest rarely come downstairs anymore.

He resists new things. When smartphones became mainstream, Cheng Cheng urged him to switch to a touchscreen—but he’d mutter, “Buttons are easier.” When ads overran his phone, all he could do was sigh repeatedly: “I’m old… so old…”

“Aging is something no one can fight or fix,” Cheng Cheng told Eye of the Storm. “Everyone just has to accept it. I think society hasn’t given seniors enough psychological support. Just as everyone is experiencing childhood for the first time, everyone is also experiencing aging for the first time.”

To her grandfather, spam ads aren’t just a tech or economic issue—they’re a question of existence.

He’s over 80, yet still hasn’t truly learned how to accept aging. A few months ago, he was hospitalized with severe pneumonia, slipped into a coma in the ICU—and his phone hasn’t lit up since.

Recently, Lin Miao started saving her scholarship money to buy her grandmother a new phone. She wants larger fonts—much larger. She also hopes it integrates a flashlight—not just a software toggle, but a physical slider that turns the light on and off with a swipe.

Fewer residents mean the property management turns off courtyard lights early each night. Winter nights are long, and Liu Huiqin—already unsteady on her feet—likes walking the garden path lined with slippery pebbles. Lin Miao worries constantly she’ll fall in the dark.

She’s bought her grandmother a standalone flashlight, but Grandma always forgets to carry it. Like most people, she underestimated how any “extra” item becomes a burden for the elderly. And the phone’s built-in flashlight is too hard to find—and easy to leave on.

Most importantly, she wants a phone completely free of pop-up ads—one that offers seniors peace of mind.

Lin Miao has listed her requirements meticulously. Yet no such phone exists on the market. She once bought “elderly shoes” for her grandmother—nothing fancy, but at least the marketing acknowledged seniors’ needs.

“But so-called ‘elder phones’ or ‘senior modes’ are mostly just simplified smartphones with a few shortcut buttons,” she said. “They don’t truly understand what aging feels like.”