10/22/2008

A progression:

I've been thinking about how our entertainment influences our approach to life. It's something I've wondered about for years. Depending on when you were a child, your developmental years coincided with one of the following stages:


Stage 1: Live Broadcast Television:
I wasn’t home when my show aired, so I missed it.

Stage 2: Taped broadcast Television:
I wasn’t home when my show aired, so I missed it.
and I had to wait for it to come up in reruns.

Stage 3: Home storage of broadcast shows on magnetic media:
I wasn’t home when my show aired,
And I didn’t set my VCR to tape that episode of my show, so I missed it.
and I had to wait for it to come up in reruns, or buy a copy.

Stage 4: Home-storage of broadcast shows on electronic media:
I wasn’t home when my show aired,
And I didn’t set my VCR to tape that episode of my show,
And I didn’t set my DVR to save new episodes of my show, so I missed it.
and I had to wait for it to come up in reruns or buy a copy.

Stage 5:On-demand rebroadcast of shows (network website or on-demand):
I wasn’t home when my show aired,
And I didn’t set my VCR to tape that episode of my show,
And I didn’t set my DVR to save new episodes of my show,
And I didn’t get to the network website before they pulled the episode, so I missed it.
and I had to wait for it to come up in reruns

Stage 6:On-demand broadcast of shows:
I pulled up a show (any show) and watched it.

I grew up during stage 2. If I didn’t watch a show while it aired, there was only a slim chance I’d ever get to see it. This MUST have had a impact on my development as a child, though I'll leave it to professionals (and web surfers, which are almost like professionals) to figure that one out. We're now in Stage 5. How does it change a kid to be able to watch their favorite shows any time they want to? How will it change kids when any program they want can be shown to them at any time and location they desire? And the big question: will all of these effects we swamped out by the effect of living through a depression? Interesting times.

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