Elderly people on computer

If I look to my family – I find we are all on the web, but doing different things there. We are all there for daily news, seeking for the most interesting title. OK, not all of us – the youngest one (7 years old) is not interested in news yet and the oldest one – 84 years old grandma -prefers one special TV news programme, because “the moderator is the son of my sister’s friend’s friend.” My nephew is on the web to socialize. He is one of the so called “mobile generation” and is my guide into WAP. My mother uses the web for research and goes to Youtube for classic music. She is the one who is ready to pay for good content. And she does. On the contrary, my father is on the web for everything he can get for free. He always says that this is the best thing about internet. That is the reason he tries tirelessly but unsuccessfully to teach his old mother to read her regional press printed out from the web. A pity she has a problem with her eyesight, otherwise he would try to convince my granny to sit and read these stories online. Although my dad has made some progress. My granny has been on skype for me for a few weeks already…

New media has changed my habits of media consuming. But that’s not surprising.

Myself, I am still not so advanced as to be on Twitter or to use all multimedia features possible, but I’m happy to watch Youtube documentaries, mostly those made by the BBC. Whenever I want and whenever I have some burning question. The last one I was pleased to find and watch was “Michael Jackson Story 1958-2009″, also powered by the BBC.

Youtube is always there for you – with both lots of amateurism and most important, lots of valuable information. So, no regrets that I do not have my real paper magazine in my mailbox anymore.

She chose traditional media

The different supports – press, radio, TV, internet have different uses and meanings according to different temporal and spatial contexts. Is it the same effect when we read an article in a newspaper, when we hear a radio programme about it, when we watch a television programme or we read a blog in the internet? We can consider that there are some differences. Not only in different uses of it (your hearing is more activated in one case, your vision – in another; you need to make a gesture when you turn the newspaper’s pages and it is enough to click when you read in internet). It also depends on differences between the associations that these media have.  

From my personal point of view, these associations are constructed socially but also depend on personal experience. For me, the ‘traditional’ media could not be replaced by www. Why? I remember my grandparents’ summer house where at an exact hour my grand father turned on the radio (national Lithuanian radio) and started listening to the news. It was like a sacred hour, something ritualized that had, and still has, a meaning for my grandparents. My parents watch the news on national television in 8.30 pm every day and I could not imagine that they could replace it by the articles on the internet. As you can see, even the medium can have a special meaning for people.

I also have some special feelings according to different media. For example, pleasures of reading a ‘real’ newspaper (and smelling this new paper) that I don’t feel when I am using the internet. Maybe it is because while reading newspapers or magazines, I concentrate on it more, but I have also a feeling of being in a ‘real’ world. For example, I have my coffee on a ‘terasse’ on a sunny day with a newspaper. Or I take the new Elle magazine with me to the beach; I read magazines on trains or books in a bed. I am in this world.

Even if we stay open-minded, we need some benchmarks and sometimes it is difficult to reach them in a virtual space.

Am I in the same world when I go online? Of course I am. But the problem lies in the associationsof this huge informational machine.  I feel as if I am in a different space with lots of information that you need to…manage somehow. My anxiety is about the ability to concentrate when you read something in the internet. Sometimes I have a feeling that I read all the day different things on the internet but I can’t remember any essential thing. It’s a paradox but when you read an article in a bus or on the beach, you hear people talking, laughing, but as a result you are more focused than when you read on the internet. Maybe it is because this kind of information from ‘traditional’ media is a finished product? Something framed that gives you a certain feeling of security? I would like to use a “house” metaphor. We need to frame our space of living; I think it is the same for thinking. Even if we stay open-minded, we need some benchmarks and sometimes it is difficult to reach them in a virtual space.

Whereas sometimes I have a feeling that I lose control in the internet, that the information controls me and it is difficult to reach  stability there. It is true that what you find in the internet, you could not find in any ‘real’ newspaper. What is new is that you can quickly compare information you read: this article says this, another interprets the same facts differently; in this magazine you can feel more this ideology… While reading one ‘real’ newspaper or listening to one radio could be dangerous because you have only one image of life. But…how to choose your own manner to consume this huge (‘new’ or ‘old’) world of media?