Saturday, September 17, 2011

Retrograding Screens


Remember – back when having a home TV was a completely new concept – when screens were much smaller and people had to fuss around with the antennas to get decent reception? Of course, I don’t remember that time because I wasn’t alive yet. But I’ve seen my fair share of old movies and sitcoms depicting these outdated customs. A family of 5 all huddled around a miniscule black and white television yet, constantly shushing each other in attempts to hear what is going on, because there was no such thing as “re-runs” or DVR.
Though technology has come a long way since then, I can’t help but thinking that we have come full circle – in some ways, back to the time of the “old tv.”
Just think about the way that many people watch movies and television these days – on their computers or PDA devices. Though this is a very different technology than the original tv sets, I sometimes feel like I’m watching something from 50 years ago. I can’t tell you how many times my tv/movie watching experience has been interrupted by poor internet connections – sometimes causing my computer to freeze and requiring me to restart the program. And the screen that I’m watching on is so much smaller than the tv in my living room.
Yes, planning your schedule around televisions shows is a nuisance, and the HD quality of today’s PDA screens are great when they work, but I still think it’s a little funny how we are, yet again, huddling around small screens instead of larger ones.   

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