For the young generation everything seems to revolve around the Internet as it’s actually the most important medium for them where they do several things involved with school and leisure apart from socializing. H5, Skype and Facebook are some of the Internet applications students mentioned. The Internet is also an important source of information even for online celebrity magazines which shows the print press is losing ground among young people. Watching series on TV takes a lot of their free time as well and again American series dominate the screen, like Family Guy, American Dad, Glee, Dr House, Grey’s Anatomy. A major comedy show was Gato Fedorento, a national production that was a hit even among young people. The most relevant difference between media for the young and for the older generation is the fact that young people see it as a major source of entertainment rather than information.
The older generation listened to the radio, watched TV and read the newspapers and wrote letters to communicate. There was a lot of illiterate people until the 70’s and 80s on account of the absence of a consistent public education system so the radio was in fact a medium that could be accessible to everyone and of course later on the television, although its dissemination was just complete by the 80s. Free time was definitely not for all of the Portuguese. One of the oldest women interviewed stated that she didn’t have much free time as people worked long hours and couldn’t afford to spend money in their free time.
