Teenagers all on tablets and old folk are stuck in the box

A Different View with Dave O’Connell

Old people are the only ones watching television anymore, while teenagers are now so engrossed in their electronic tablets that they’ve never spent less time actually talking to other human beings.

That’s the sad reality of life as we now know it – the older generation still clings to the big glowing box in the corner for its entertainment while 18 year olds have cut down talking, walking and human interaction to maximise their digital consumption.

The findings come in two separate surveys in the UK – the former an analysis of television viewing patterns and the latter comparing the lives of 18-year-olds in Britain with those of their counterparts in 2000.

Pointless is a programme that is frequently enjoyed in our house by the younger as well as older residents – but we’re bucking the trend because the over 55s make up 80 per cent of the total audience.

They do the same for Bargain Hunt and Songs of Praise.

The older viewer also dominates the BBC News at One audience, but that might have as much to do with the fact that they’re at home while the younger viewers are out at work.

The bad news for the Beeb is that over-55s accounted for just under two-thirds of all their BBC One viewers last year, a percentage that has grown from just under one in two as recently as 2010.

So the generation that doesn’t read newspapers also doesn’t watch television – and there’s little to suggest they’re glued to the radio either.

Indeed the Office for National Statistics findings bear that out because it found that 18-year-olds spend 27 minutes less each day on average visiting pubs or cafés, meeting friends and family and talking on the telephone than they did at the start of the millennium.

And they also spend about 26 minutes less a day watching television or films or listening to the radio.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.

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