It’s a Sunday evening and trying to get my family to agree on watching something on television together is proving impossible. Him indoors and the teenage son have a preference for Guy Ritchie’s new violent drama, the youngest is desperate for a Disney animation and as for me, if I’m honest, I’ve had a little side-gig re-watching Downton in secret for some time, so I’m not going to fall apart like a kitchen maid if we all separate off. But wouldn’t it be lovely if we could find something entertaining to do together? And really, the Dowager can wait. But what would fit the bill these days? How do we get different generations together to share an experience without a gun to their heads? 

There are a handful of exceptions to the above stand-off, and these tend to be limited to those events that manage to transcend any generational divide. The Eurovision Song Content still rates well for most ages, and it doesn’t really matter if we’re all second screening. You can’t have everything can you? Although, you might be hard pressed to find many young (straight) men joining you on the sofa. Similarly, the mainstream family fare from the old school terrestrials – Strictly, Dancing on Ice, Gladiators, Ant and Dec doing …anything.  All excellent format with their roots in traditional talent shows and end of the pier family fun. Turning it all into a competition gives these shows an even bigger chance of success. So, even though there will be winners and losers, inter-generational connections would still come out on top. 

Sport remains consistently appealing for different generations both on TV and in person.  The World Cup particularly seems to bring many of us together, as does the Olympics, with a sport for everyone.  Three billion of us tuned in to the Tokyo Olympics. And before you bang your saucepan and shout ‘Pandemic!’ at that statistic, that figure is actually lower than the average audience for the Olympics! Equally, in America, no one goes anywhere on Super Bowl night. Except probably the Ubereats employees. There’s a commonality of investment and enjoyment in these events with each of us finding we want to support our team with a tribal fervour not seen for hundreds of years. And maybe that’s why it feels so good –  supporting our teams together with our communities. For the sports events, people are more likely to go to the pub or to a community screen to enjoy it side by side with strangers, who suddenly, because they are cheering for the same team, become our best friends for the night. 

 The same chemical effect occurs at live music events with big stars like Adele and Taylor Swift attracting multi-generational fans.  That invisible alchemy floods the audience creating a strong bond and an amplification of our enjoyment.  There is science behind this phenomenon too, studies have already proven that our emotions, both good and bad, are amplified if we are engaged in a shared experience. 

So what would the additional impact be if that shared experience was across different generations? Well, we know from various studies that gaining intergenerational connections improves cognition and feelings of well-being in older adults, but there is also proof that having an adult mentor or hands on relative in a young persons life improves their self-esteem and life chances. One particular study in the US looking at two groups of young people – half with a mentor, and half without – found that the differences were staggering, “There was a 46 percent difference in drug use, a 50 percent difference in school truancy, and a 33 percent difference in violent behavior”

Look at the good old Pantomime, a uniquely British phenomenon which manages to mash a fairly ropey story of good versus evil with cheesy gags, sing-alongs and audience participation. Despite the high cost of many of the big productions, going to the Panto is still the highlight of many families Christmas’s, in large part due to the intergenerational shared experience. 

Enjoying music and a sing along with your family, neighbours and friends is one of the best ways to tick all of these boxes and doesn’t come with an expensive price tag. Once upon a-long-ago, every home had a banjo or a piano and we sang songs together, and, shock horror, we loved it. 

The Sing Up Foundation boasts some compelling evidence as to how we can improve both our own mental health and that of others by singing regularly with our communities. Singing not only hits us with those yummy feel good endorphins it also strengthens the immune system, allows us to grow in confidence and empathy and improves social bonding and social cohesion. 

 There’s nothing to stop us singing more with our families. Unless you have teenagers like mine, I suppose!  Still, there’s plenty of local choirs you can join, often without any singing ability whatsoever.  If you want to find a choir check out either Natural Voice or Big Big Sing 

However, if singing in public just doesn’t feel terribly British, then maybe we can look to Italy. The Sanremo Music Festival in Italy has been running since 1951 and has grown in popularity so much that the ad revenue from last year rose to 50 million euros. The festival is a competition for new songs which holds the Italian public in such thrall it regularly gets between 70% and astonishing 90% share of the TV viewing audience. The show runs across several days and was the inspiration for Eurovision. It’s good natured and entirely focussed on debuting and celebrating new music. Crucially last year’s festival they got the highest viewing share for the 15-24 age group since 1997 which was 61.7%. Music and sport really do bring us together.  

So if you want to improve your life, literally in just about every social and mental wellness way, get into sport or singing even if it’s just viewing others participating in it. Better still, go to a football or rugby game and sing along with the crowds. 

If you want to start something sporty on a more local level then you can bring all generations together by signing up to ‘Generation Games.’ This is a national initiative for everyone from schools, entire cities or organisations where you can download toolkits and suggested sports to create teams of players including those from at least 3 generations. 

As for the ever-bigger black screen in all of our lives perhaps it would be nice if TV companies thought about the experiences that we share across generations that would benefit from interrogating for new TV formats. Ideally created without overly focussing on pitting us against each other. We all love, we lose, laugh, cry and dream of better days, so why not start there? Dating Mum and Dad was a hit because it was done with compassion and recognised that older doesn’t mean irrelevant. And Channel 4 championed both First Dates and Goggle Box which each champion different ages, demonstrating how very much more we share across the years, than don’t. But come on – these are TV formats that date back over ten years. Where are today’s fresh ideas? 

In this media-chundering world of personally cultivated preferences and algorithms we’re being neatly divided up into micro interests which send us into ever decreasing circles. It is time that Big Media help drag us out of these special interest silos and help cultivate better relationships across the generations. We want to be together – so show us something we want to share.