Watching Television: Things Have Changed
Tonight I was watching the season premier of Supergirl, guest-starring Superman (see my thoughts on the episode here) with my ten year old son. For television, we only have Netflix, but since Supergirl is not on Netflix, we had to watch it online. When you watch television shows online on a network’s website, you have to watch commercials.
My son could not handle the commercial breaks. While he enjoyed the episode, he wanted to go back to Netflix. He sees commercials on YouTube, but at least you can skip them. The idea of stopping the story every 10-15 minutes for another commercial break seemed so weird. It was excruciating for him.
And yet this is exactly what I grew up with. Commercial breaks just became a part of the rhythm of watching television. In fact they were welcome breaks for either going to the washroom or grabbing a snack.
I could not even choose to flip to the next station during the commercial because we didn’t have a remote. Actually, when my dad was watching television, I was the remote and would get up and turn the dial. When it was just me, I couldn’t be bothered to get off the couch.
I remember my parents describing how things were when they were young and thinking that they were pretty old. Now I’m that old person (yes, I remember our transition from black and white to colour television). My experience of watching television as a child is in a different world from that of my children’s experience.
Things have certainly changed.
