Case Study- "The Sleeper Curve"

Case Study pg 20-21



Do you enjoy T.V. shows and video games that your parents or grandparents don't understand?

- I enjoy playing sports video games as well as watching sports on T.V. Sports have been my number one hobby since I was about six years old. All the games i play on my XBOX 360 are sports games that my parents and grandparents understand, because they have watched me play them for years. The one game I can think of that they might not understand is FIFA. It is a soccer game and I never played soccer growing up, so my parents do not really understand the rules. They might not understand why I play video games so much, but they understand the games I play. As far as T.V. shows, I watch almost the same shows my parents watch. We like Hell's Kitchen, Dexter, Weeds, any 48 hours show, Forensic Files, and many other. I watch a lot of sports shows and games. The only sport my mom will watch religiously is football. I also watch South Park because it is the funniest show on television. That is one show that my parents or grandparents would not understand. My grandmother caught me watching South Park when I was a little younger and heard the bad language on the show. She cut that T.V. off so fast it made my head spin. One thing that my parents and grandparents watch that I don't watch often, is the news. Sometimes I will watch CNN or Nancy Grace, but my dad and grandpa's watch the local news all the time. They also watch the Weather Channel, where I just check the weather on my phone. All in all we enjoy about the same T.V. shows, and I play games that they understand. They just don't want to play them.

What types of stories and games do they enjoy?

- My parents and grandparents enjoy murder mystery stories and shows. I would say that most everyone enjoys a good comedy story. My dad and grandpa are always trying to say something funny, and most of the time they make the whole family giggle. The women in my family are not very big on Action stories, where as the men are. I like a good Action movie as long as it is not too over the top. Nobody in my family enjoys futuristic or science-fiction stories. If it has to do with aliens in space or all of us driving flying cars in the future, I am not interested. Everyone in my family enjoys sports stories. The first movie my grandpa ever made me watch was "Rudy." That is still one of my favorite movies of all time. It is so inspiring and really makes you believe that you can do anything you put your mine too. My mom really likes to watch or play guessing games, such as "Who Wants to be a Millionaire" or Trivial Pursuit.

What did earlier generations value in storytelling, and what is similar and dissimilar about storytelling today?

- I believe that story telling back in the day were more non-fiction related. Most stories came from life experiences. People based their stories more on facts instead of he said, she said. There were not all these bogus magazines writing articles like,"Elvis was seen in NC" or "Big Foot spotted in New York City." I believe that new stories are more fiction based. With the growth in the media, more rumors are passed that are not true. As Americans we believe almost all we hear in the news. Sometimes the news can be untruthful, but since we heard it on CNN we believe it. Also they probably told a lot more stories about the wars. My grandpa's have told me bits and pieces about their experience at war, but back in the day war was happening all the time, so plenty more stories to tell about it. The Mass Media today puts out stories making us wonder which one is true or which one is false.

Interview with someone from an earlier generation-

- For this question I choose to interview my mother. The first thing my mother talked about was how advanced technology has become over time. There were no Nintendo, cell phones, or computers when she was growing up. I could not imagine living without computer access. I do not know how people got along without it. My generation has had the privilege of being able to use the computer whenever we want. My aunts and my mom use to use their imaginations when they were growing up. Since they had no computers to browse on, they would play cowboys and Indians, put on shows for family, or make a haunted house in the woods for the family. There were also no reality shows on T.V. I think that reality shows are the stupidest shows on T.V, but a lot of people watch them. My sisters and cousins would be in panic if they woke up tomorrow and had no Bachelor or Jersey Shore to watch. The shows that were on T.V. were family shows such as The Brady Bunch, Three's Company, and The Waltons. My mom said, "The shows were family oriented, good shows that taught life lessons. There were no people getting shot or blown up on T.V. If there were crime shows, they were soft crime." I believe it was a more laid back time. The use of violence on T.V. has led to more violence in the real world.

One of the big cultural differences is that everything is at a touch of a button, simple gratification. These days if you want to talk to a friend that is out of town you can simply send them a text. When my mom was growing up and had a friend out of town, she would have to write them a letter. Sometimes it would take weeks for them to hear back from them. It was a more patient time back then. There was no social networking, no Facebook, and no instant messenger. If she wanted to talk to a friend that lived near her, she would have to wait til she got home to use a land line to call them. With the advances in technology sometimes my mom feels lost. We got a 50 inch TV not to long ago and she had no idea how to work it. That is where I come in. I try to help my mom as much as I can with technology with her computer, her TV, and also her cell phone. Although she has unlimited text on her phone, she probably uses about twenty texts a month. We hardly ever text each other. She will send me pictures of my dog Otis in a text every now and then, but other than that she never uses text messaging. I talk to my mom frequently on the telephone. I will call her on the house phone more than on her cell phone, so it is not to confusing for her.


Source: http://harristjean.blogspot.com/2010/08/case-study-sleeper-curve.html