It often seems that the things that we once thought of as a luxury, soon become a necessity. It’s a trend that comes up often in the book, “The world is flat” by Thomas L Friedman, but it became a new reality when I got faced with my latest cable tv bill.
My girlfriend and I watch TV pretty much for the sole purpose of watching “Six Feet Under” with Comcast “On Demand” as it’s just about the bext TV there is. In fact it’s so good, I think it’s no longer TV but some new form of storytelling that develops over five entire seasons. But I digress. We just never bothered to watch regular TV anymore. Very occasionally, I might come home and want to just let me mind go into a semi-concious holding pattern of channel flipping, but I realised that I would rather just mess around with t shirt designs or make dinner, or browse Gizmodo. Or anything.
And while I truly belive that installing Tivo would have made my TV watching experience richer by working on my schedule, I also believe that the hours spent actually watching TV would just increase. It seems logical that the better TV got, the more TV I’d watch. But that’s just it, I don’t want to want TV any more than I do. In fact, I’m quite partial to the idea that TV is just plain bad for your health.
So when my Comcast bill arrived, I took an honest look and realised that if I had to choose TV over internet access, internet access wins. Hands down. No question.
And it struck me how pervausive and embedded the idea of having always on, wireless, highspeed connection is to me. In fact, it’s to be it’s stopped being an option. It’s now a utility. Like electricity, gas and water.
So, yeah, when England plays in the World Cup, I now have to go a mate’s house to the pub to watch it. The other problem now is feeling steadily more disconnected to po(o)p culture. How on Earth will I know who’s doing who in Hollywood, without E! News?
