My grandmother knows many things better on the map than I do. I noticed that, for example, when we watched Linna’s party together.
I’m visiting sometimes at my grandmother’s in Tapaninvainio, Helsinki. My grandmother is an 82-year-old widow who has a lot of time to be and think. He has never used the internet.
My grandmother’s days include precise rituals. They start right in the morning and continue until late in the evening.
The morning starts with TV news, which is watched at least three times a day. Then we also listen to the radio news at even hours. During the break from news broadcasts, newspapers are read from cover to cover every day – and the most important stories are cut out with scissors for luppo time.
For my grandmother, the news is clearly not only company and pastime, but also an important way to be part of a functioning society.
Me too I consume a lot of news like my grandmother. However, I mainly follow them myself from my smartphone.
When talking with my grandmother, I notice that despite our age difference of 55 years, we share the same basic knowledge about the world. Both of us know which is the biggest party in the parliament, what experts think about the drug use rooms, how the Leopards are connected to the war and who are Behm or Lauri Markkanen.
Actually, I’ve noticed that my grandmother has a better understanding of many things than I do. I got an example of that once when we watched Linna’s party together.
Grandma recognized almost all the guests: professors, fashion designers, rappers, politicians, their spouses, actors, civil servants, athletes as well as diplomats.
Grandma could still tell some isolated fact about almost everyone, such as their hometown. I can’t do that, I really don’t follow the news that widely.
From one however, grandma knows nothing about the news.
He has no idea how much the news is argued about on social media.
He has no information about what news anyone thinks has been chosen by the wrong expert, what news has been declared hostile to which group, and what news should not have been published in anyone’s opinion.
“
He has never used the internet.
For my grandmother, the news is information transmission and not constant interaction saturated with emotional reactions. In the end, that is the biggest difference in our generations’ relationship with the news.
However, even grandma can disapprove of strange news when necessary. Slicing knife too. He just does it on his own terms, in a cool, relaxed way and not as part of a pretend heated social drama.
The author is a news producer for HS local editorial.
#Column #observed #grandmothers #media #usage #surprised
