Guest post by Scott Adams
Way back in olden times when there were only a few television channels, I enjoyed watching television. I was happy with it most of the time. But in recent years, my television has trained me to stop watching it.
My cable company now offers hundreds of options. That means I can’t find a show within five minutes of searching, and my patience no longer lasts five minutes. My smart phone trained me to have a far shorter attention span than television demands. Mindlessly searching for TV shows among the hundreds of options feels like putting my brain in jail.
If you add one person to the room with me, the odds of finding a mutually-acceptable show that neither of us have already watched approaches zero. But I look anyway, failing at every stage.
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Science tells us that people get anxious and unhappy when they have too many choices. I can feel this happening to me in real time. I have trouble finding a show to watch because I know there is such a high likelihood that a better show is available if I just keep looking a bit longer. My experience of watching television has turned from consuming to hunting…and hunting…and hunting. Until I give up in frustration or run out of time.
On top of that, my cable company has many amazing features and options in their menu labyrinth. They also offer voice commands. Put all of that amazingness together and the end result is that it takes three attempts to do every step of a multi-step process. The voice control works about 30% of the time. I take the wrong menu path about 50% of the time because there are so many options that look similar in function. Without exaggeration, I end up cursing at my television almost every time I use the remote.
My default viewing pattern for the past several months is to watch only cable news shows plus one music channel that I can tolerate. But the cable news networks are making their money from the following types of commercials:
- Pharmaceutical products that put dozens of side-effect symptoms in my head and make me feel as if I might have those exact problems.
- Pet rescue commercials that make me incredibly sad because I am not a sociopath.
- Security products that remind me of the risks of great bodily harm that comes from sitting around at home minding my own business.
I can’t watch any of those commercials without feeling bad. And that bad feeling is associated with the news channel that carries those commercials. If you associate a bad feeling with a good product for long enough, the good product will become intolerable.
I see no hope of television surviving in the long run if they stick with their current business model of training their customers to hate the entire television experience.
On the plus side, Netflix has a good user experience. I can see why they are doing well.
Just stop watching all of it altogether instead of attempting to find satisfaction. Problem solved.
Youtube beats TV by about a million percent.
There are a few excellent cable series out there which are better than anything in the movie theaters. ‘The Crown’, ‘Fargo’, ‘Man in the High Castle’, and ‘Bosch’ are just a few.
Just cut the cable. We did it 4 years ago, and now I refuse to sit through commercials. So yes TV trained us not to watch TV. For80 bucks we bought a roku at walmart, and pay about 11 bucks a month for netflix. Between the movies, you tube and all the other free stuff we are never lacking choices. Also pandora is an exellent way to get house work done as the more you up vote songs you actually like the better the algorhythm becomes. And did I also mention, no commercials.
The best thing about cutting the cord is that it only takes you a few seconds to determine that everything currently available to watch on your TV is a pile of shit. With cable, the same process used to take minutes.
I haven’t watched tv for years. Every night we sit in front of the box watching old antiques roadshows on Kodi. When my wife bails I watch a movie if I can find a good one. Each year there are hundreds of movies made and only ten or so are actually watchable. Who pays for the 600 other horrible movies? Why do they think that making them would be a good idea? The great thing about Kodi is that you can look at the actors and a short plot description. If you don’t know who these people are it is almost guaranteed that they will never have gone to acting school and you won’t be able to watch them for more than a few minutes.
Sad.
TLC ( the learning channel) switched from shows about the Roman Empire, Genghis Kahn, space, and the Dark Ages to Kardashians and Bruce Jenner sans penis.
The Family Channel has now become “Freeform”–should be called the witches and demons channel with all of the Twilight movie and demon hunter shows.
Home and Garden Channel used to have great tips for gardening, animal husbandry and home repairs, now it is all “Flip this house” crap with women construction workers and gay interior designers.
H2 ( History channel 2) is now “VICE TV” which is about every twisted, perverse global form of deviancy you can imagine. Headlines like, “The trials of a mid trans Bi-Asian Male in traditional Japan.’
The mainstream networks are a bunch of TV series of powerful Women cops or politicos one-upping ( or physically beating up) evil white en while they cheat on their cuck husbands with either a lesbian affair or the noble black man.
2 Years ago I bought a Roku, cancelled cable TV–I pay $11 a month for Hulu and still barely watch any of the millions of choices. Sometimes Sunday evenings I’ll watch a Pixar movie with the family/granddaughter and she enjoys some of the Nickelodeon shows ( although I’ve blocked 2 or 3 of them which have gay parents on little kids TV shows)…even kids TV must be monitored for smut and filth–sad.
Scott….how the hell do you watch ‘news programs’ on cable?
Only watch TV at bedtime for a few selected stations: OAN, History Channels, Science, Nat’l Geographic.
Movies downloaded from Internet.
Am on computer most of day when not working on something.
Well, that ‘splains this website. Glad for it though.
Tea Tea,
This is the only place left to retain your sanity.
Or you can watch TV and lose all your marbles.
How about the MY PILLOW ads !
Over and over again, drive me nuts.
Yes–and another odd thing I’ve noticed, why are all of the people in the ads for drugs in slow motion?
Back in the 1970s I read that PrimeTime TV is geared toward an 8th Grade education. Back then, BossLady and I thought that “Studio Wrestling” at 10:30 PM on Saturday nights was one of the better comedy shows. Approximately equaled by Roller Derby for laughs.
As an ex-race car driver, I do like to watch the “Big Three” venues, although the meddling with the rules has reduced my interest. I still like to watch college football; less so, the pros.
I’m in accord with Javelin about what could be called the “serious” TV channels. Not worth bothering with.
Ads? Ads are for refilling coffee or beer, or doing the bathroom break. All of them are easily improved via use of the mute button. (As are most football games, actually.)
Todays Tom Sawyer he gets high on you. And the space he invades he gets by on u.
Oh for fucks sake. Not that Canadian dreck. Sounds like a fucken dentist’s drill. Where the fuck is Stuckey? Happy birthday, you fabulous Austrian bastard.
Fabulous?
Stucky is moving his bride into their new love-nest.
They will be watching Love-Boat re-runs and buying potions guaranteed to return lost passion.
I think he got a tip from Maggie.
Right now I’m in the process of “cutting the cable” as soon as I finish typing this I’ll be back to fishing coax cable thru the walls to be able to watch FREE OTA TV using an antenna.
My cable provider has been raising my bill just about every month. On my last cable bill I’m now paying $124 a month just for the TV portion of the bill and I hardly ever watch TV. That’s $1488 a year that I don’t need to pay.
I should have done this a long time ago.
I just called and canceled the TV portion of my cable bill. My last bill was 237.74, I canceled the TV portion and still have phone and internet no changes there and my new bill is going to be $70 a month and that is not a promotional deal that will ratchet up in 6 months, that’s the normal rate. So I’ll be saving more than I thought, more like $2000 a year. Yep should have done this a long time ago.
Asig,
that’s what we thought too, but the tax on the $70. they
quote is more than 50%. I am not kidding. Since “cable”
got cancelled the amount has crept up from $90+ to $117+.
That would be for phone and internet dial up. We have a
second internet provider (not for long) and it is spotty.
The company is national at least, Century Link, the main
service in this ruralville. (tax and fees, I should have said)
I stopped watching TV about 1990. There are occasionally some shows like the Sopranos, Deadwood, Breaking Bad… that I have on DVD but I have far better things to do with my time. The older I get the faster it goes too.
My guilty pleasures are watching the Grand Slams in tennis. Online BTW. The Australian Open was fabulous with Nadal and Federer in the finals.
We have used free OTA TV for years. Nowadays it’s still tough to find anything worth watching.
I was working last night and missed the Oscars entirely. Heard about everything that was controversial, amusing or entertaining in about five minutes this morning from my wife. She liked some of it, mainly because she has watched Kimmel for years on his show and knew about the inside gags (Kimmel vs. Matt Damon, Affleck & Damon rivalry, similar stuff). If I had watched it I probably would have bailed inside five minutes – I’m just not into Hollyweird that much. And from what she told me, about five minutes (maybe ten) out of a four-hour show was actually entertaining. Being generous, ten minutes out of 240 is 0.04166… Less than five percent entertainment (and no, I don’t find many commercials interesting either!). Why would anyone watch this stuff?
There are some fabulous writers with fabulous stuff out there, but they aren’t being made into movies. David Weber writes military SF and fantasy, but there’s no studio out there who’s making his stuff into movies. Larry Correia writes fantasy, but his stuff has too many guns in it for Hollyweird to adapt it. Many other writers can’t come to terms with a system that’s out there to rape everyone for every dollar someone else can earn by writing a good story. We need more competition for Hollyweird, just as Fox and CW give competition to NBC / ABC / CBS TV shows. We need people who can tell a GOOD story, not just a SJW / trans / minority / regressive story – we already have more than enough of those.
Jimbo, the programming is designed to keep you numbed up for the government’s sake. Why does TV have that kind of fare? Because the sheep watch. If you aren’t a sheep, you won’t like the programming. Unfortunately, you won’t get the inside jokes either. You will then be a pariah, a man without a country.
I didn’t leave my country, my country left me. – Benedict Arnold
Pet rescue commercials that make me incredibly “sad” because I am not a sociopath.
So I’m a sociopath because the ASPCA and PETA scams don’t make sad? Those people probably kill more animals than they save. An animal is an animal. While I think if you have one you should take care of it, I don’t think they are people or a child or think they need a shrink or vacations or any other ridiculous crap that people do. I live next door to people who have 10 dogs in their small house and the dogs are only outside a total of about half an hour a day. They have a pot bellied pig, 10 or 12 exotic birds, 3 ducks, a cat, 3 horses, 2 ponies and some rabbits on less than 3 acres. It is their property and they can do what they want but that is what I find “sad”.
Cut the hulu, cut the Roku, cut the Netflix. Stop acknowledging they exist at all.
What are they anyway (actually I know about Netflix)?
In principle they are just alternative video streaming services. Hulu specializes in TV shows. Roku is able to be modified to give you easy access to pirated movies.
This causes some people to think they are “sticking it” to Hollywood but not really. Viewers are still addicted to consuming the products which means they are still getting their messages into people’s homes.
Get to know your digital video recorder (DVR). I seldom watch anything live except sports. You can zoom through commercials you don’t want to see. You can record series and surf through the channel guide to record movies of interest. You can record entire series and binge-watch them at your own pace. DVRs have huge hard drives and can store more than you could ever watch. It’s like having a personal library of pre-selected shows/movies/specials to select from. I am never at a loss to watch something of interest. Recent examples on my DVR:
1) The entire 5-season package of “The Wire” from HBO
2) The entire series “How the Universe Works” from the Science channel
3) The entire series “Homeland” from Showtime
4) A few seasons of “Game of Thrones” from HBO
5) A regular rotation of new movies that come out each month (“Sisters” was a recent favorite)
Get out there and start recording! Unlike with the Outer Limits, YOU control the recorder! YOU control the remote! YOU can adjust the horizontal and the vertical! LOL
Over my head, I’m still trying to figure out how to work the TV.
Net flix and YouTube rocks
Try Putlocker, its free and has most of the current movies as well as oldies.
Hagar,I agree,net connection and plenty of streaming options available for free,no need for any money changing hands and no need to download which technically is illegal.I can if I chose(rarely do)watch any tv/cable/just released movie for free.
Sounds good, what is that?
Remember when purchasing cable gave you commercial free interruption , poof gone ! Now 400 channels and nothing on ! Now you pay to be irratated and forced to have 5 or 6 spainish language channels oh it’s part of the package , no it forces enough people to pay to keep it streaming nationwide rather than select market areas ! I have no problem with any channels offering any number of things , I am certain I am not alone in a fact that I prefer paying for a personal selection and forget the rest so Netflix is in the mix too . Now I pay for more shit I don’t watch
This butt nugget has an issue with the time it takes to find something to watch? Sheeeit negro, what about content? I can spend weeks finding something to watch based on acceptable content alone.
Last night Mrs. VagHalla tried to get me to watch some clip she pulled up on her computer….some cute little puppy whining while comments and exclamations were being made in some foreign unintelligible language (mexican, I think).
There was a subliminal message being sent, using the ‘look at what the cute puppy is doing’ angle: People are here using some strange, nasty-sounding language, but that’s perfectly normal, keep your ears on the cute puppy.