Interview / Antía Salve

Things have changed a lot since the past to the present, and the ways to have a good time and spend our free time too.
There are a lot of young people who spend their free time watching TV, playing videogames or just doing nothing, not realising that there are many more things to do.

INTERVIEW

I asked a 24 years old girl, María, to discover what her opinion about that change is and what her leisure activities were.

1. Did you have much free time when you were about my age?
No, I didn’t have much free time, because I had a lot of lessons in the morning, and in the afternoon, every day I went to an academy.
Also the time I was at home I spent it studying.

2. What were your hobbies?
Going out with my friends, going to the cinema, to pubs, parties. Besides, in summer holidays I went to the beach or to the pool and sometimes I practised aerobics in a gym.

3. Did other youngsters enjoy doing the same things?
Yes, because I shared the activities with may school friends or local neighbours.

4. What did your parents think about it?
My mother liked me having fun, but some days she told me off for not arriving on time and she didn’t agree with some of my friends.

5. What is your opinion about the way young people spend their free time nowadays?
I think that the youngsters don’t spend their time in a good way. Especially the kids, because their usual activities are to stay at home, watching TV or playing the videogames.

6. Haw do you think that this could change?
In my opinion, they should take activities in the open-air like sports: basketball, volleyball. In this way, teenagers would be at least with company and not like a lot of them, alone in their houses.

7. What are your leisure activities now?
Although I have to work, I have time for going swimming to a gym and going out with friends.

CONCLUSION
In my opinion, people some years ago spent their time having fun in a more healthy way.
Because nowadays the teenagers make activities individually at home, instead of carrying out other hobbies with different people and in different places.

by Antía Salve Bouzo, 1º BACH C

Activities in the past and now / Sheila Fernández

The activities in the past and now are very different because the people have other way of thinking and the economy has changed too.
My grandparents enjoyed drinking “colacao” or eating biscuits because they were unusual in their houses.
However, currently, we are more capitalist, we don’t mind having indispensable things like a toilet or soap that didn’t exist in the past, in addition, people spend their free time in different ways.
In the past, the children have a lot of things to play with and most of them don’t play with them.
Teenagers used to go to the town’s parties, where they danced, drank, in short, they amused, but now the teenagers go to pubs to dance and know other people, but they don’t drink a lot there because it is very expensive, for this reason, they do a lot “BOTELLON”.
They buy in the supermarket or in a 24h Shop cubs, ice cubes and drinks because there, they are cheaper and then they go to the “Alameda” because now they can’t go anymore to the “Plaza de las Mercedes” because it’s forbidden.
Friendship is different too.
In the past, friends talked on the phone if they had, but now we talk in the internet, messenger, mobile phone etc.
In conclusion, times have changed and both, the way to spend our free time and people.

by Sheila Fernández Pérez, 1º BACH C

Leisure activities in the past and now / Sara Maslanka

The activities that young people used to do in the past are very different from the leisure ones in the present, although some of them haven´t changed.
In the past people spent more time out of their homes because they didn´t have so many games or computers, televisions and vidiogames as we have noow.
They spent a lot of time with their friends, and when they had money they used to go to the cinema on weekends.
Nowadays we hardly ever go to the cinema, beacause we are used to downloading the new films we want to see from the Internet.
People in the past were longer outise because they wanted to see and talk to their friends, but today we spend more time inside our houses, because we don´t need to go out to communicate with our friends. We just need to turn on our computer, or our movile phones and we can speak to anybody all over the world.

But there are things that haven´t changed at ll. Young people in the past liked to practise sport together, and so do young people in the present.
It´s a funny way of working out, and spending time with friends is something that was and still is ver ypopulat between young people.

In general all generations of young people like music. Music is very popular although the styles and music preferences have changed throughout the years.

I think that leisure activities may have changed from the past to the present days, but, in my opinion, young people in the past enjoyed, as much as we do now, their free time hobbies. It doesn´t matter if they have changed.
Mostly they have changed because of the new technologies, but they can be the same fun now as they were then.

Perhaps nowadays we are too dependent on technologies to communicate with others, but for young people now the inportant things in their lives are the same as they werein the past.

by Sara Maslanka Figueroa, 1º Bach C

Two interviews, two different generations / Carme García

Nowadays, young people have a lot of activities to spend their free time. The internet revolution has required a new world of information and hobbies so people changed the way of spending their free time. In my opinion, these changes have taken place in a very short period of time. The media say than youngsters spend three hours in front of television. PC or whatever virtual machine. However, they also have time to practise sport, study and go out with their friends.

I would like to compare the different ways of spending free time in different generation. I’m going to start the interview with a person from the 1920s generation and then, I’m going to ask the same questions to a person from the 1990s.

1. How did you spend your free time in your teens?

1920s: I hadn’t so much free time. I really spent all of my time working and helping my parents to live, because of the little salary my father earned. Firstofall, I worked at a sweet factory and then I sewed jackets for a shop. When I had free time I rarely went to the cinema because it cost so much. I also went for a walk to the main square.

1990s: I started going out with my friends when I was 13 years old. We went to the park and go to de disco where we linked with boys. We used to go to de cinema once a week. Besides, I liked chatting with my friends by internet when I arrived home. Especially I enjoyed gossiping.

2. How did other teens spend their free time?

1920s: They would go to the cinema. People who had enough money also went to a café where they could dance on Saturday. Boys played football and girls went for a walk. There weren’t swimming pools and only boys could go to de the river to swim.

1990s: My friends and I did what I just said. Some of them play football, basketball or practise any sport. Actually, I don’t like sports so I don’t play any. Some also played any instrument at the conservatory of music and when we are on our own at home we can spend hours in front of television.

3. What was your town offering you to enjoy the free time?

1920s: Cinema and it had a café where you could go to dance.

1990s: A swimming pool from June to late August. A ‘sportive town’ with an athletics track and a tennis court, a football pitch, a wall where you practise climbing. It also offers an air-conditioning swimming pool. Besides, schools offer theatre lessons in the afternoon.

In fact, the society has changed a lot in the last 100 years. Today there aren’t the same necessities as 60 years ago, so towns have also changed, that is why people spend their time in a different way. It’s difficult to decide which one is the best.

by Carme García Benito, 1º BACH A

Interview with my grandmother / Andrea Santos

My grandparents' leisure activities were very different from our leisure activities nowadays.
My grandparents didn’t have the same time for leisure activities as us, because in the past they had to work during the week and they hadn’t got so much toys as us.
I interviewed my grandmother.

Interview:

Did you have much free time when you were about my age?
--No, I hadn’t

Why?
--Because when I was the same age as you, I had to work hard to help my family because we lived in the country and we had got cows, sheep…The only day I had got free time was on Sundays evenings.

Did you use to spend your free time on your own or with other people?
--No, with other people. We used to walk on Sunday evenings and some times when we took the cows to the meadows, we tried that another friends come to the same place and then we could play games as: “hide-and-seek”, running…

What were your hobbies?
--My hobbies were sewing, knitting, talking to my friends and dancing.

Did other youngsters enjoy doing the same things?
--Yes, more or less. Not all the girls liked sewing and knitting.

Why did you do that?
--Because my mum taught me and I liked it.

If you could, which thing or things would have you changed?
--I would have liked to have more free time, not only for playing but for going more to school.

What is your opinion about the way young people spend their free time nowadays?
--I think that you don’t have enough imagination because you can’t enjoy yourselves without computer, TV, mobile phone…You need spend a lot of money to have fun.

Conclusion:

In the past my grandmother hadn’t got the same way of enjoying themselves me because her way of living was very different from mine.

Of course, I prefer my way of life.

by Andres Santos Fernández, 1º BACH A

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

Leisure activities in the past and now / Adriana Iglesias

I’ve always thought that children have everything they want, and that they don’t have time to get bored. Leisure activities have improved a lot; I mean, there are many video games and facilities that 30 years ago people couldn’t imagine they would exist someday.

When my parents were very young, they used to go out with their friends. They went to the park with them and sometimes with their family. There, they exercised or they just played on the children’s playground. When they became teenagers , they started to do different things. For example, my mother loved reading romantic novels, and my father joined a band. At nights, they went to the disco to dance or to date someone, since that was the place where my parents met.

My grandparents used to do similar things. They lived in villages and there, they played popular games and they took care of animals like horses, sheep and cows. They liked going fishing to the river and there they swam. They also had picnics and went camping. My great- grandfather would hunt and he taught my grandfather how to do it, though he didn’t like it because he was fond of animals.

Nowadays, people do different things, but also the same as them. I sometimes have lunch with my friends in a restaurant and then we spend the rest of the day together. In summer, we go to the swimming pool, which is crowded, and we sunbathe, swim in the pool and play cards. Some people love going to the shopping center. They can buy clothes or whatever they want. Others like reading and they can spend all their time doing it.

One of the things that has always been very important is spending time with your family. I meet them every Sunday, and we always have a good time together. I think this was even better in the past, because it was very common to live with your grandparents or other members of the family, so you could see them every day.

We should do more things outdoors, as people did in the past. Although they didn’t have electronic machines, they knew how to have a good time and spent more time with their friends, something that helped them to be sociable and more confident. Many people stay at home watching TV or playing computer games, instead of playing sports, going to the cinema…
In conclusion, our leisure activities can improve even more if we mix things people did in the past with other things we do now. Maybe, if you’re used to doing something, you can make an effort and try to make it funnier than it is. It just depends on how you want to spend your free time.

by Adriana Iglesias Pazos, 1º E Bach

Interviewing our grandparents

Comparing parents and grandparents’ free time and mine, I realize; some years ago there were more free time, more imagination to spend it and less dangers on the street, but parent’s orders were stricter.
On one hand, my parents used to go fishing and having walks in the nature and; on the other hand, I just go out on evenings Saturday three times a month. I would like to spend more time with my friends, but with my homework I don’t have enough.
I’ve interviewed my grandmother, who is in her seventies.

Me- Did you have much free time when you were about my age?
Grandmother- Yes, I did.
M- Why?
G- Because when I was seventeen, I had already left school. I got married at the age of eighteen.
M- Did you use to spend your freetime on your own or with other people?
G- That depends. Sometimes alone, another times with friends or family.
M- What were your hobbies?
G- I used to do needlework, I liked to sew, to embroider, to knit,…
M- Did other youngsters enjoy doing the same things?
G- The girls….yes. But boys used to play football, ride horses, catch birds, climb trees, they were doing pranks every day.
When we were younger, both girls and boys, used to skip rope and play with the spinning top.
M- Why did you do that (to sew)?
G- Because we spent most of the time at home. Parents didn’t allow you to go out. If you were at the cinema, watching a film, which had already finished and you must came back at home at an hour, you had to leave the film unfinished.
M- What is your opinion about the way young people spend their free time nowadays?
G- There are good, and bad things. It’s ok a flexible timetable, leave the film unfinished had no sense, but there are too young people who go out to eight in the morning; that’s too much!

I don’t think that my grandmother’s activities were more enjoyable than mine (to sew is not funny). But they spent less money and had more imagination.
Nowadays, most teenagers spend their free time opposite the computer’s screen or television.
In my opinion, society should reflect on teenagers’ behaviour. We should take advantage of gyms and mixed groups (boys and girls friends), so, leave the TV remote control or the social drinking glass and have a walk in the nature.

by María Martínez López, 1ºBAC A

Ainoa Davila Ferreira interviews her father / Spain

It is always said that teenagers are different depending on the time of life. This is true but I believe that there are things that never change and they're still as they were some decades ago.

I asked my father and he told me a lot of things about his teens. His name is Jose Jaime, he is 48 years old and when he was my age it was the beginning of the 80´s.

- Jaime, when you were my age, did you have the same free time as I do? Why?

Yes, because I was studying. Nevertheless, at the same time I used to play football and I had to train three evenings a week.

- Did you use to spend your free time on your own or with other people?

I used to spend my free time with more people because I was part of a team: we trained together and when we finished, we usually went out to have dinner with the coach.

- What about your hobbies?

I loved music and when I was your age I used to listen to Spanish and foreign rock, such as Barón Rojo, Leño, Asfalto, Deep Purple, Pink Floyd, Bob Dylan… We used to go to concerts of this kind of groups and others less important, in Ourense and on the outskirts. Normally, this kind of concerts took place in bullrings or sport centres from midnight to seven o'clock in the morning.

I have wonderful memories of a concert in El Barco de Valdeorras and another one in Xinzo. In the first one we were going to put up a tent but we lost a centerpole and we had to use a piece of wood.

Other hobbies of mine were playing football.

- Why did you do that?

Because I liked music, going to concerts, listening to music at home buying CD's. And I loved playing football because practising sports kept me fit. I always played in teams so as to travel and get to know new places, but then, I met my present wife and I stopped playing football to spend more time with her. A few years later I started playing another kind of football called indoor football but I had to give it up because of a serious injury.

-What did your parents think about it?

They thought that it was good and they came to all the matches. They become friends of other parents. In addition, my father loved going to matches because he played football for the veteran team in Ourense.

- Did other youngsters enjoy doing the same things?

Youngsters close to me did, but there were others who preferred other things, such as going to discos, parties, "guateques"…

- And, did you use to go to discos?

Not so much. Normally I went to discos once a month because my friends would normally go on Sunday evenings but on some Sundays I'd play football.

- Do you think any of your hobbies were useful for your life? Why?

I think so, because now I'm 48 years old and I'm faster than my daughters, who are 17. And this is thanks to football. It's also thanks to football that I keep fit, I'm healthy, I know a lot of friends, I know the province of Ourense and I grew up as person.

- What is your opinion about the way young people spend their free time nowadays?

My opinion is that, nowadays, young people have more enjoyable means than before and they don't know how to value them.

In fact, time goes by, people and their habits change a lot but there are things that never change.

I think young people should take care of the environment and they should value nature more. I disagree with street partying or that people should drink alcohol at these early ages and I believe the problem of young people is that they have got too many things.

By Ainoa Davila Ferreira, 1º BACH

Interviewing eldery people

THE PAST AND NOW

Our parents' and grandparents' free time activities were very different to the leisure activities there are now. Our grandparents didn't have any toys, and they had to work from a very young age.

Now I will talk to a person who had a different childhood:

Me: Hello Teresa! How are you?

Teresa: Hello! I'm fine.

Me: How old are you?

Teresa: I'm 78.

Me: What did you use to do in your free time when you were a child?

Teresa: I sewed or read because there weren't toys.

Me: What was your first toy?

Teresa: My first toy was a doll which my uncle brought me from Venezuela.

Me: Did you have much free time when you were about my age?

Teresa: No, I didn't have much free time.

Me: Why?

Teresa: Because my parents needed me to help with the field jobs and the housework, cooking, cleaning and looking after my siblings.

Me: What is your opinion about the way young people spend their free time nowadays?

Teresa: I think that young people don't know how lucky they are. Without toys and new tecnologies (that they have) we were happier. Young people now don't have imagination to play not even when they are bored.

Me: Teresa, thanks for your opinion.

In conclusion, young people now don't sew or help with the field jobs, they watch TV, go shopping, go to the cinema, surf the internet, play computer or video games, and live very differently to Teresa or other parents or grandparents.

Rocío Dopazo Rodríguez, 1º BACH-E

Leisure activities in the past and now / Ana Quintas

I think that the leisure activities in the past were different from the activities that people can do now, because of the technologies and the mentality of people nowadays.

In the past, my parents used to spend time with their family more than people do now. They liked, for example, going together for a walk or going on a picnic, especially at the weekend. They also used to spend more time in the street walking and talking because they had less money. But my grandparents did different leisure activities from my parents. They went fishing or hunting because this was a way of life.

Nowadays, I think that there are more activities to do than in the past and they are not the same as my parents and grandparents did. I surf the net researching information about a topic I’m interested in, I visit my favourite websites, watch video clips and I keep in touch with my friends using a social network site. I play computer games on my own or with my friends or family. I play the flute and the piano in a band that I created with my friends. We created it to enjoy our free time but we are not a serious band; we only want to be together.

I don’t think that these activities are fun for my parents or grandparents, because they don’t understand the new technologies, they are not used to them. But for me they are really fun because I learnt how to use them when I was a child, so it is easy for me to work them.

Today people enjoy life more than in the past because they have more money, so they can do a lot of things which are expensive, like going abroad, and people have another way of thinking.

In conclusion, we live better than in the past, we enjoy life and we have great variety of activities to do.

Ana Quintas Santos, 1º E BACH

Leisure activities in the past and now / Adriana Feijóo

Nowadays we know that our way of spending our free time is completely different from our parents’ or our grandparents’.

It’s fantastic to listen our grandparents’ stories about what they did when they where young because it is so different to our leisure activities that we want to know more about that, what activities they used to do and what they think about our activities now.

When I asked my grandfather about his childhood, he told me that everything was better than now because he used to play outside, in the countryside, they breathed clean air, there wasn’t a bad relationship among friends like now, and they were more sociable.

I think that it’s because nowadays a lot of young people spend their free time playing video games or in the computer and this way you don’t develop your social skills.

But on the other hand, we also do activities like playing billiards, playing basketball or dancing that are good to spend our time with friends and that is really enjoyable.

My grandfather says that it’s also true that now we have a lot of activities after school and that means that we don’t have so much free time, and that time we are tired and we prefer being at home or going to the cinema instead of doing other activities.

Perhaps our way of life has changed a lot but most young people still prefer spending their time playing with friends, doing sport, going to the park, listening to music or cooking together, to playing video games at home.

I admit that I love chatting with my friends at nights but if I had to choose between living with a PC all my life or spending only a week with my friends on a trip, of course I would choose the trip.

Adriana María Feijóo Morenza, 1º BACH E