The Impact of the Television

Sixty one year old Marisela Elias wife and mother of four shares her opinion on the impact the television has had in her lifetime. She shares the differences she has seen in how her childhood was without the television and how that has changed. She shares how children now spend so much time in front of the television that they don't want to even speak anymore. She also share some of the advancements the television has also had in being more aware of what is going on around the world. She shares how there have been both good and bad advantages with the television.

My name is Marisela Elias, I was born in Jerusalem but raised in El Salvador and I am 61 years old and I'm here ready for my interview. My family had our first television well like more than thirty years ago, because it was first in black and white and then it was in color. But yeah maybe even more because we were little, my sister was little and I am only 3 years older than her. And I remember later they would have to put the TV far away because we wouldn't eat cause we wanted to watch we were little. I was maybe about ten years something like that about fifty years ago.

Before the television our entertainment was oh well the radio uhm my father also had a record player it had these really big disks and you would play music with it. And often people would come from my family. Well things like the church things like that were very beautiful things and then we played games like lottery. Well people would find a way to entertain each other. Sometimes we would listen to novels from Cuba we would hear them on the radio. But we had a lot of fun we were very entertained we would go to the movies and there were also some dance companies. There were a lot of different artistic and cultural events. And well that's how it was we had fun and well then the television came and I think that was when we lost a bit of the contact with the group and the family. Because then we would watch the soap operas my mom loved them my grandma not so much but they'd both end up asleep. And my dad liked the adventure ones but he mostly liked going to the movies. We had the movies close and it was cheap we would only pay fifteen cents and it would get filled up because the teenagers would go cause it was where they would let us go. And then on Sunday we would have to get our uniforms ready and schoolwork we had a lot of fun. Another fun thing was my dad had a big family and my moms lived far away and they would come to visit we like too hear my dads scary stories but I got very scared and I would later start praying I was always a carrycot but not any more.

I think the television changed contact among people with those games the children play with the Internet and that stuff know the kids don't even want to talk anymore. I see a great change in society a tremendous change because there are those who have their children well prepared. But there are also those parents let their children spent hours and hours cause they don't put restrictions and that's when they get bad grades and the teachers call them and tell them they don't do homework. I had some friends who had children and they bought them the games I told them that would bring them problems, because my husband would give my son a certain amount of time to play and one time my son didn't pay attention my husband took the game outside and broke it and my son told me that it wasn't his and I told him we would have to pay it but you didn't follow the rules they told you what time to what time.
Yes their was a change between my childhood and my children's childhoods but they were still very good students they would not spend hours and hours in front of the television they would occasionally watch something. Bit I think I do watch a lot of TV even though I'm old and I fall asleep many times because I'm tired of housework.
I think the television has also helped, as a way of relaxation yes there are a lot of lovely shows. There are some nice channels I like seeing shows about different countries and cultures and that I love seeing things on Ireland, Italy, France, and Spain I like it channels like pbs there are nice shows.

The television also helped to see what is happening around the world especially with cable you get to see programming from other countries. There has been a lot of advancement very modern. It's a good way to know what is going on in the world before we would have to here it in the radio or in the newspaper hours later or days after you would find out oh this guy died or those countries are in war, but know you see it when it happens. It's just that some parents have not disciplined their children and then they spend a lot of time just sitting down and that is when they have to fight obesity me my children I tried to keep them balanced. I really do enjoy television I think I am the one that watches the most television but not too much just sometime just a couple of soap operas. But only when their interesting when they get boring I don't. The new is what I like to watch the most.


I have seen a change in how much violence and nudity are in those shows those women they make the men believe they can look at them the wrong ways.
Women now they look very vulgar and its like their not wearing half their clothes its like they want men to miss judge them and have no respect for them. It makes the kid begin to develop to early. Change people used to be seen different classy know women show everything their used to be more class but know in some shows the women show you everything women are seen with a bit less respect it should have more class.
Television shows are different in every country like in china they are only allowed to watch a certain amount of time they let them watch a couple of shows and then they cut them off that's how it used to be in my country. There are also a lot of televisions now everybody has a television in their room it used to be everybody would gather around one TV. There has been both a good change and a bad.