Gambling, Shopping and Fast Food: The Senior Citizen Edition
Introduction
The main focus of my project was to explore some of the stereotypes regarding older adults. My ideas about activities stemmed from TV shows/movies and how they portrayed the older adults. One stereotype that I explored was that older adults tend to hang around in casinos, which led me to spending two nights wandering the Soaring Eagle Casino. Another stereotype I explored was that only older adults tend to play bingo which I also did. The third stereotype that I explored was that older women tend to spend their time shopping and are always looking for a good sale, this required that I spend some …show more content…
Most of them are actually very friendly and are willing to help. This project can be compared to what we learned in class about the stereotypes regarding older adults. Some of the stereotypes we discussed in class were that older adults are grumpy and boring. This project has shown me that this is not the case. The ladies at bingo were a wild bunch of older ladies and knew how to have fun even in their 80s, they also were not grumpy. I found that my ideas of where to find older adults before this project were very limited. I knew you could find them in the nursing homes, at churches, dollar stores and garage sales. This was due to the experiences that I had with my different grandparents when I was growing up. You would not find a single one of my grandparents at a casino or playing bingo. I did see a lot of my grandmothers in the hobbies of the older adults that I interacted with and was able to make several connections to the older adults that I already …show more content…
When I was at the casino I saw many older adults sitting alone at the slots, just like me. When I was shopping I saw some of them also by themselves. This also was me when I was at the diner’s and was sitting alone making notes about my project. I got the sense of what they might also be experiencing when they are doing activities alone. They seemed to be content to be alone but they all seemed to be grateful for a smile or a hello from a younger adult. If younger adults would pay attention to the older adults they might not think of them as stereotypically. There are many of the stereotypes that I explored that did seem to be true but there are also many different ones that are not true. We can have more advertisements around campus about the Adopt-A- Grandparent program and educate the younger generations on the benefits of getting to know other older adults. We currently have the technology needed to make more advertisements and the social media to portray what older adults are actually like. By having younger adults engage with those who are 65 or older we can help get rid of the issue of older adults being lonely. We can create friendships that might be missing in their lives. From what I saw about the older generation they like to have fun but due to the lack of friendships it can be difficult for them to have a variety of activities to engage in. By having someone younger to spend time