Let talk about my parents and me and our relation to the use of media!

My parents and I consume the media in totally different ways yet not every media. They are the happiest TV consumers but I instead prefer news papers, books and the internet.

Yet, in my family we have one thing in common: books. We read a lot and always give each others ideas about new books that we will all buy in different languages, some of us will get it in French, some others in Swedish or may be in English, but never in Norwegian- strange because my parents live in Norway.

My parents are settled in a beautiful place in Nessoden (Norway) yet it is funny because they keep following the news from France 24 or TV5. The journal télévisé is to be sending at 8 o clock in the evening, this means that it is not allowed to call or talk to them during that time. It is especially forbidden to talk to my mom, she will never answer the phone, the door -bell, nothing. When I’m there with my sons, she becomes this weird and knotty grand -mother during the journal télévisé.

Before, I personally saw Television as a distraction; I saw it as something that stole my time away; I could live without watching TV for months, just by ignoring it. This happened until I faced a very shameful situation: We were having an examination in school on Human Rights relation to Humanitarian Intervention and this was about the US involvement in Afghanistan. The thing is that I was not quite sure that I remembered what actually the connection between these 2 countries was. The more embarrassing thing was that even younger persons knew what happened and probably even my at that time 6 years old son. Fair-enough I made the test however I decided that this should not happen again. No matter how sceptical I am against Media’s objectivity, I still have to be aware of the news around the world. I can still hear my mother saying: “I have always told you that it is important to follow the news, what kind of young person are you”?

I have shown my father the same thing several times and still he never remembers how a computer really works.

When talking about the internet, here come the “Casus Belli”- this is when conflicts of generations occurs. My father always asks about the same thing every time he has his chance: Can you show me how to open the internet and “You Tube”? This request usually makes me out of myself, because I have shown him the same thing several times and still he never remembers how a computer really works.