How leisure activities have changed ... / Sara Cid

Leisure activities have changed a lot for the last years. They aren’t the same in the past and now. Our grandparents and parents used to do other things in their free time. They enjoyed more of the nature and they spent more time together.

For example, my parents used to play with toys made of wood and painted. Nowadays, all toys are made of plastic and they need batteries. In my opinion, children in the First World don’t develop their imagination. One reason is that toys move alone, they are mechanized; other reason is that children have a lot os games, toys...

In the past many people had to go to the mount with the cows, like my father. He lived in a village and his parents were ranchers. Nowadays, everything is easier because we have supermarkets where we can find any product.

I admit that my generation has everything within our reach. We have Internet, which is an important tool, TV, radio, a lot of magazines or newspapers... We can know what happens all over the world.

Our parents had TV but there was only a channel and with few programmes, so they spent their time with family or friends. Not very frequently and only the lucky ones went to the cinema. The cinemas of before were different. There were very few movies and they spent more time in billboard.

My grandparents would play with popular games, such as spinning top, runs, to clap... My grandmother used to make dolls with spikes of corn. In the past there weren’t toys. In addition the few ones there were very expensive for the majority.

My grandparents lived in a rural way, so they used what existed in the field to amuse themselves. In my opinion this way of entertainment is good because you enjoy yourself and at the same time you respect the environment. I believe that technology is not necessary to have fun.

Nowadays, teenagers are only worried in playing with computer games and they don’t socialize. These games are addicted and very expensive and they are bad for their mind because some teenagers usually think the real world is like these games.

In conclusion, every way of entertainment is different and it has advantages and disadvantages. On the one hand, leisure activities in the past were cheap but there were few ones. On the other hand, nowadays there are a lot of activities but nearly all need from the technology. Probably in the future there will be other ways of spending the free time...

by Sara Cid Feijóo, 1º BACH A