The Role of Television in Supporting Aging Life

To watch television by aging more than any other age segment and because of that the elderly has grown substantially in recent years in the country and challenges posed by this increase, television has a potential impact on successful and active person's lives by producing and presenting effective TV programs with suitable content and structure toward the elderly.This research analyses the role of television in supporting the elderly's lives in the Metropolitan of Tehran. The data collection gathered by surveying. The statistical population was the elderly from 22 Tehran regions. The statistical sample was 400 elderly in 22 Tehran regions selected by the sampling method of three-stage clustering. The data collection tool was a researcher-made questionnaire. The validity of the questionnaire was content and formal validity and its reliability were calculated by Cronbach's Alpha 0.8964. The findings showed that 84 percent of the Tehran elderly watched television programs. According to the data from the survey, the majority of them watched TV programs for "entertainment and pastime", and then for "information and news", and the minority did for "education". Tehran elderly viewers were interested in "news", "serial", "movie", "documentary", "lecture" and "music" respectively. Overall women spent more time watching TV "serial" and "movie" than men and men interested more in viewing "news", "documentary" and "music" than women.