How can you stop your mom being addicted on social media? And what hobbies and tasks should I give to motivate her?

You Mom is 51, a grownup now. She will decide what she wishes to do with her time, as all grownups do. Have a good talk with her about your worries about how long she is on media, and on the computer. Ask her if there are not things she would like to do? Foster animals? Do volunteer work. Tell her that she is young still with likely four more decades to live and may be the next author of the great American novel published after age 50. Have this gentle talk over lunch. Tell her these are some of your thoughts you wanted to share with her, you hope she will consider them, let you know if you can help her in any way to explore all that is out there, and then tell her that you will never speak with her about this again unless she wishes to discuss it further. Then take your pencil out and mark this off your list. There is nothing else you can do.

You say that your mother is retired. Very few retirement plans start at age 51. It could be a very good idea to start finding out about your mother’s finances, income sources, and assets that might be drawn down now. Something is very wrong here. If your mother is drawing down her assets, she will end up destitute before she reaches retirement age.

You are looking at this from a health and relationships point of view. Checking the money may be the easiest way to change things that need to be changed.

I am so sorry that you are in this situation. How old are you? 51 is hardly a senior but AARP starts at 50, so I understand that you feel like she needs to pay closer attention to her health and of course, her family.

Tell us a bit more about your mom? You mentioned the pandemic. Do you think that something else is going on or did this behavior started due to being isolated?

I think I would start by telling her that you miss her. That way she won’t feel judged and possibly become defensive. Did she spend lots of time on Facebook before? Or other social media? Does she have insomnia or did her habits change? Is she avoiding something? Has there been bad arguments in the home? Did she do all of the cooking and cleaning alone? Did she feel taken for granted? Did she burn out on chores? What’s going on in her life? Is she depressed? Anxiety?