Interesting article. Comments? I like the fact that now I have a response when people tell me I spend too much time on the Internet.
Posted by ricree101 (Member # 7749) on :
At the very least, the part about internet replacing TV is true for me. The only TV I really watch these days is BSG and the occasional sporting event.
Posted by Shan (Member # 4550) on :
Interesting.
Thanks!
Posted by steven (Member # 8099) on :
I can't believe that a TV producer said "but isn't this just a fad?" Is anyone really that dumb? I find it hard to believe someone actually said that.
Posted by Sharpie (Member # 482) on :
I saw this a couple of days ago and I loved it. It also has made me look (again) at how my teens/college kids and their friends interact with all things digital AND non-digital. This is a generation that has had a mouse in hand their entire lives. My daughter right now is playing WoW, talking on the phone, and has multiple AIM windows up. She is also glaring at me .
They loll around and argue on wikipedia talk pages and build websites for "no reason at all". They dash outside to take a picture of a dead bird and then upload it to a lj community and argue about the planet.
Hm, they argue a lot.
They watch a ton of tv, too, on their own terms, streamed, netflixed, and scheduled programming -- and they discuss it here in the room with me and on forums. It's not that tv is disappearing; it's that its impact is different. Just HOW it is different is still being figured out.
Posted by scifibum (Member # 7625) on :
I think it's a very interesting article. The idea of a cognitive surplus just lying around, being dissipated by TV...I'm resisting it a little. I'm not sure if people have more cognitive capacity than they are currently using to produce things, or if TV is popular because people need to be cognitively passive for some period each day. The existence of wikipedia might support the former view, but do we know whether time spent on such projects is in addition to work & school effort, or is it borrowed from there? (Internet access might allow people to use their work/school time for this kind of thing.)
Interesting to think about. I'm considering ordering the book.
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
Mm. It's a point, and certainly not watching any TV gives me a lot more free time, but then you have to consider that (by Sturgeon's law) 90% of those thought-hours that would be freed up if TV were outlawed tomorrow would be crap.
Posted by pooka (Member # 5003) on :
I'd rather spend my 10% working on my novel than watching the best possible TV show (such as Nova).
Not that I necessarily do that...
I wouldn't say it's a fad, but it is cyclic. There was a time when we were moving toward better and better prepared foods, but then people got into cooking their own food. But I think the degree of fancy in home cooking expertise is probably getting ahead of people, and we'll go back into a consumer mode for a while.
Posted by scifibum (Member # 7625) on :
I bet Food Network viewership tracks closely with trends in amateur cheffery.
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
quote:Originally posted by pooka: I'd rather spend my 10% working on my novel than watching the best possible TV show (such as Nova).
I phrased that badly. I didn't mean that each person who stopped viewing TV would necessarily get 10% good thought-hours. I meant that of the total, only 10% would be useful. It would be extremely unevenly distributed among the population.
Posted by Icarus (Member # 3162) on :
What an awesome article/post/entry/whatever!
I'm glad I checked Hatrack today, and glad I read this thread. Thank you for linking it!
Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
quote:Originally posted by King of Men: 90% of those thought-hours that would be freed up if TV were outlawed tomorrow would be crap.
![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)
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