Our 500 Channel Universe

There is no doubt about it.  We live in a rapidly changing world.

I remember my Grandparents telling me about a time when cars and planes were in their infancy, before commercial air flight, and before the mass produced automobiles advented by the Model T. And it was certainly a time before television was even dreamed of.

In my own time, I've gone from the TV being fixed on the only station it could get, to moving where we could get three stations (three! - count 'em - three), to the explosion of channels that could be obtained by cable, to the plethora afforded by satellite, to the almost infinite choices brought about by the Internet and streaming.

It's only been recently that we've been able to make programs start at our convenience, with the rapid succession of the VCR, then the DVD player, to the miracle of the DVR, to finally the streaming services that allows us to call up whatever we want, whenever we want.

We're not limited to television sets anymore, being able to watch programs on our computer desktop, or on a laptop, or a tablet device, or even our phone.

At one time, television shows were "events", and the most popular garnered huge audiences. Everyone gathered by their sets at the same time, and we all thrilled to the same adventure, or laughed at the same comedy, experiencing it together.  It helped make TV a more communal experience.

Now in our super-defuse entertainment universe, it is hard to have that same shared experience. There are fewer and fewer water-cooler shows that we can all share the next day.  We may have seen it, but others have it scheduled for later viewing and beg for no spoilers, and many others may not be interested at all.

The best thing about this new world is the incredible choice it offers, and is a hallmark of the best of how free markets work.  Theoretically, we have all the information in the world at our fingertips.

Unfortunately, we also have all the misinformation as well.  Rather than learn about each other, or reach out for shared experiences, we tend to use these plethora of choices to reinforce what we already believe, to narrow our world instead of broaden it.

It's more than a matter that I choose to watch more science fiction and mystery shows than most, that I gravitate to every time travel and alternate universe story I can find.  It's even more than that some choose to concentrate on voyeurism, reality shows that purport to show how people are in their everyday lives (and then making the grave mistake of voting for one of these reality stars as President of the United States).  It's that we're creating our own news environment that confirms our political, social, and religious biases without letting in counter opinions.  Rather than use the 500 channel universe to broaden us, we use it to narrow our world.


I love having so many choices.  It is, to me, the best of democracy and the free markets.  I hate the way some of us are using it.

It would be nice to have some uniting events, something beyond the Super Bowl and a handful of major sporting events, beyond the major tragedies like 9/11, something besides a viral video of a cat doing something funny, or a human doing something stupid.

Although I don't miss the days of only three channels, I do miss the unity of experience that it afforded.  I miss not only the shared entertainment experiences, but more importantly, the common civic base of knowledge it gave us.

I miss Walter Cronkite.