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What most computer people don't get about TV is that there are millions upon millions of intellectual lazy and/or socially malleable people who would rather fol

What most computer people don't get about TV is that there are millions upon millions of intellectual lazy and/or socially malleable people who would rather follow the tube. It's a demographic, and it's not going away.

diego 18y ago
I think most people need to be in "passive mode" at times. There is no substitute for sitting on a couch and doing nothing while a device shows a mix of recorded and live content continuously. Having limited choices is good in that context, because it removes the need to think. You flip through the channels and stick with one that seems interesting for the time being. I believe the current "passive" mode of TV won't go away. It will coexist with the Youtube mode of actively finding, watching, following recommendations, etc.
- AlexTheFounder 18y ago
  Add to it the spare time at an airport, in a supermarket, in an office waiting ... Also disabled people come to mind, kids as well. So TV will definetely stay
Brushfire 18y ago
I disagree. I'm with PG on this one. Those 'intellectually lazy' people watch tv becuase they grew up with it. The new generation is growing up with facebook/myspace/im/friendfeed/twitter. Its the conversation about the tv show that counts, not the tv show. The main problem right now is that tv still makes up such a large part of peoples lives almost out of tradition, and also becuase TV on the net isn't there yet. The only valid claim this article talks about is about producers/writers -- essentially production value. Thats whats lacking currently with most online-only things. But when there is money, the writers/producers will follow. And the money is coming, if it isnt already here.
- 9oliYQjP 18y ago
  My nephew is a teenager and he often plays Xbox Live! while: -his cellphone is on speakerphone to a friend he is allied with on the current game; -his instant messenger client is busily chiming away with messages sent to him, which he'll respond to in between game rounds. -his browser is doing the whole Facebook/MySpace/YouTube rotation as links to interesting content is thrown his way. You're right; it's incredible how focussed that generation is on the conversation. They don't let anything get in the way. In fact, they use every technology at their disposal to ensure that the conversation must go on. I'm not exactly old, but I worry about constantly being plugged-in. He and his friends worry about ever being disconnected.
- mechanical_fish 18y ago
  Those 'intellectually lazy' people watch tv because they grew up with it. Yep. Never underestimate the rapidity with which a brand new thing can become an ancient and treasured tradition. And never underestimate the rapidity with which an ancient and treasured tradition can disappear. One of my favorite examples of the latter is billiards. In the first half of the 20th century billiards was one of the most popular spectator sports in the United States. This, mind you, was not pool, a game which was considered shady and low-class -- and still is. This was proper billiards, the kind played on a pocketless table with three balls. [1] The USA harbored some of the most famous, most talented billiards players in the world -- guys like Willie Hoppe and Welker Cochrane -- and as late as the 1940s these guys would tour the country selling out big billards venues. Every town had a billiard parlor. Billiards died. [2] It died hard, within less than a generation. The prevailing explanation is that it was killed by television. TV gave people something good reasons to stay at home or lounge around in bars, instead of devoting hundreds of hours to mastering a rather difficult game that tends to embarrass any new player. (I tried playing three-cushion billiards once. I couldn't score one point without deliberately setting it up for myself. This isn't eight-ball.) Perhaps now it is TV's turn to die. The name TV might live on, but only in the sense that the word billiards lives on in American popular consciousness: As a nickname for a superficially similar game (pool) that had better survival characteristics than the original. --- [1] If you didn't know this you probably didn't understand certain lyrics in The Music Man. Those lyrics are obscure today, but back when the musical came out everyone understood the joke. Indeed, it was barely a joke! [2] In the USA, that is. In certain other countries there are many more billiards players, though I believe their games have different rules.
jacoblyles 18y ago
Is it being intellectually lazy or socially malleable to enjoy the occasional piece of well-written, high-budget content? I submit that HBO's "Rome" was better than anything youtube has ever produced, and more satisfying to me than many hours spent wandering facebook and social news sites. I don't have an easy a time judging other people's tastes; I have a little humility.
- chiffonade 18y ago
  > Is it being intellectually lazy or socially malleable to enjoy the occasional piece of well-written, high-budget content? No, it's not. But the television infrastructure as we know it is designed not for people who enjoy it "occasionally", but for hours upon hours every day.
axod 18y ago
If you have kids, not having a TV is plain cruelty.
- chriskelley 18y ago
  I grew up in the country where we had barely one channel through the fuzz, I maybe watched half hour a week. The rest of the time I played outside, learned how to work hard on a farm, immersed myself in Legos, wrote stories with my sister, and played cowboy in the woods. Giving the creative mind enough time away from a TV to have to earn it's own entertainment is hardly cruelty.
  - axod 18y ago
    "I grew up in the country where" Right, and since everyone else was in a similar position, I'm sure that worked fine. My problem comes when everyone at school is talking about some element of popular culture, and one kid doesn't have a clue what to say because his parents don't let him watch TV. Everything in moderation though :)
    - poppysan 18y ago
      Well stated and I completely agree. TV is valuable socially, although many would like to disagree.
    - krakensden 18y ago
      I grew up without a television, and it really wasn't that bad. The problem I ran into was a little different- when I was around a television, I couldn't stop paying attention. I've gotten better about that sort of thing as I've gotten older, but the truth is, I still can't tune out noise, or televisions, anywhere near as well as my peers who grew up with televisions. I don't know if that's a common experience though.
    - bmj 18y ago
      I experience this already with my six year old when he plays with the neighborhood kids. We have a TV, but we don't have cable, nor do we have bunny ears to get the local stations (not that we could get them in the future anyway). We don't bar them from watching TV (much like the friends and grandparents exception someone else mentioned), and we do all watch kids' movies at home once a week or so. The only bits of kids' culture that they know are Sesame Street (because of a few videos) and the various Pixar movies (Cars, Wall-E, etc).

diego 18y ago

I think most people need to be in "passive mode" at times. There is no substitute for sitting on a couch and doing nothing while a device shows a mix of recorded and live content continuously. Having limited choices is good in that context, because it removes the need to think. You flip through the channels and stick with one that seems interesting for the time being. I believe the current "passive" mode of TV won't go away. It will coexist with the Youtube mode of actively finding, watching, following recommendations, etc.

AlexTheFounder 18y ago
Add to it the spare time at an airport, in a supermarket, in an office waiting ... Also disabled people come to mind, kids as well. So TV will definetely stay

Brushfire 18y ago

I disagree. I'm with PG on this one. Those 'intellectually lazy' people watch tv becuase they grew up with it. The new generation is growing up with facebook/myspace/im/friendfeed/twitter. Its the conversation about the tv show that counts, not the tv show. The main problem right now is that tv still makes up such a large part of peoples lives almost out of tradition, and also becuase TV on the net isn't there yet. The only valid claim this article talks about is about producers/writers -- essentially production value. Thats whats lacking currently with most online-only things. But when there is money, the writers/producers will follow. And the money is coming, if it isnt already here.

9oliYQjP 18y ago
My nephew is a teenager and he often plays Xbox Live! while: -his cellphone is on speakerphone to a friend he is allied with on the current game; -his instant messenger client is busily chiming away with messages sent to him, which he'll respond to in between game rounds. -his browser is doing the whole Facebook/MySpace/YouTube rotation as links to interesting content is thrown his way. You're right; it's incredible how focussed that generation is on the conversation. They don't let anything get in the way. In fact, they use every technology at their disposal to ensure that the conversation must go on. I'm not exactly old, but I worry about constantly being plugged-in. He and his friends worry about ever being disconnected.
mechanical_fish 18y ago
Those 'intellectually lazy' people watch tv because they grew up with it. Yep. Never underestimate the rapidity with which a brand new thing can become an ancient and treasured tradition. And never underestimate the rapidity with which an ancient and treasured tradition can disappear. One of my favorite examples of the latter is billiards. In the first half of the 20th century billiards was one of the most popular spectator sports in the United States. This, mind you, was not pool, a game which was considered shady and low-class -- and still is. This was proper billiards, the kind played on a pocketless table with three balls. [1] The USA harbored some of the most famous, most talented billiards players in the world -- guys like Willie Hoppe and Welker Cochrane -- and as late as the 1940s these guys would tour the country selling out big billards venues. Every town had a billiard parlor. Billiards died. [2] It died hard, within less than a generation. The prevailing explanation is that it was killed by television. TV gave people something good reasons to stay at home or lounge around in bars, instead of devoting hundreds of hours to mastering a rather difficult game that tends to embarrass any new player. (I tried playing three-cushion billiards once. I couldn't score one point without deliberately setting it up for myself. This isn't eight-ball.) Perhaps now it is TV's turn to die. The name TV might live on, but only in the sense that the word billiards lives on in American popular consciousness: As a nickname for a superficially similar game (pool) that had better survival characteristics than the original. --- [1] If you didn't know this you probably didn't understand certain lyrics in The Music Man. Those lyrics are obscure today, but back when the musical came out everyone understood the joke. Indeed, it was barely a joke! [2] In the USA, that is. In certain other countries there are many more billiards players, though I believe their games have different rules.

jacoblyles 18y ago

Is it being intellectually lazy or socially malleable to enjoy the occasional piece of well-written, high-budget content? I submit that HBO's "Rome" was better than anything youtube has ever produced, and more satisfying to me than many hours spent wandering facebook and social news sites. I don't have an easy a time judging other people's tastes; I have a little humility.

chiffonade 18y ago
> Is it being intellectually lazy or socially malleable to enjoy the occasional piece of well-written, high-budget content? No, it's not. But the television infrastructure as we know it is designed not for people who enjoy it "occasionally", but for hours upon hours every day.

axod 18y ago

If you have kids, not having a TV is plain cruelty.

chriskelley 18y ago
I grew up in the country where we had barely one channel through the fuzz, I maybe watched half hour a week. The rest of the time I played outside, learned how to work hard on a farm, immersed myself in Legos, wrote stories with my sister, and played cowboy in the woods. Giving the creative mind enough time away from a TV to have to earn it's own entertainment is hardly cruelty.
- axod 18y ago
  "I grew up in the country where" Right, and since everyone else was in a similar position, I'm sure that worked fine. My problem comes when everyone at school is talking about some element of popular culture, and one kid doesn't have a clue what to say because his parents don't let him watch TV. Everything in moderation though :)
  - poppysan 18y ago
    Well stated and I completely agree. TV is valuable socially, although many would like to disagree.
  - krakensden 18y ago
    I grew up without a television, and it really wasn't that bad. The problem I ran into was a little different- when I was around a television, I couldn't stop paying attention. I've gotten better about that sort of thing as I've gotten older, but the truth is, I still can't tune out noise, or televisions, anywhere near as well as my peers who grew up with televisions. I don't know if that's a common experience though.
  - bmj 18y ago
    I experience this already with my six year old when he plays with the neighborhood kids. We have a TV, but we don't have cable, nor do we have bunny ears to get the local stations (not that we could get them in the future anyway). We don't bar them from watching TV (much like the friends and grandparents exception someone else mentioned), and we do all watch kids' movies at home once a week or so. The only bits of kids' culture that they know are Sesame Street (because of a few videos) and the various Pixar movies (Cars, Wall-E, etc).