Monday, April 26, 2010

Forget Setting the VCR - How About Just Turning It On: The Impact of Technological Complications

Sometimes I wonder what impact the complication of our technology has on the DVD market.

People put money into a good surround sound theater environment with their high definition flat screen television, and then before long only 1 person in a household knows how to turn on the TV, let alone get a DVD going.

I've seen this phenomenon at my parents house and I've seen it at friends houses.

My wife and I are relatively low tech so we can both operate our system...but I promise you, it is far from impressive.

I've wondered some how this simple complication impacts our entertainment. Perhaps people really aren't as interested in reality TV and the cornucopia of cable channels that are out there - maybe the reality is, they just don't know how to change the channel.

You have to think how this might also impact people who might chose to order a pay per view movie over their TV instead of renting a far cheaper DVD...maybe they're not so sure how to use their fantasy DVD player.

In the 80s and 90s I felt like the technological stress in people's lives was setting the timer on their VCR and coordinating it to record at the perfect time. Whew - if only those people knew how many buttons would some day be on their remote controls, they may have given up then.

Remote control image found here.

2 comments:

Your Mother said...

First you post me dancing on facebook, then you let the whole world know that I don't know how to turn on the TV...

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