Tivo on the brain
I was reading John C. Dvorak’s column in PC Magazine last night and I realized that John has been thinking the same thing I have. I’ve had a Tivo for 2 years now and it seems to have changed my brain. The feature that has done the most to change my behavior is the instant replay button. It is so convenient to hit that button if you catch something interesting while you weren’t really paying attention. Now I wish I had an instant replay button for everything in my life. I’ll be driving into work and listening to the radio. If I’m not paying very close attention because of traffic or whatever, I often wish I could replay what I just missed. I definitely wish I could skip the commercials. My 15 minute drive into work seems to have 10 minutes of commercials for 5 minutes of talk (unless I am listening to NPR). I even see this happening in conversations. Maybe I’m not paying enough attention, or maybe I can’t hear the other person so well, but I often wish I could get an instant replay.
Dvorak thinks that Tivos and iPods are making everyone lazy. They are making everyone dumber and more oblivious. I wouldn’t go that far. I do think it is interesting how entertainment plays such a huge role in everyone’s lives. These devices make entertainment more accessible. I take my iPod to the grocery store. Normally I really hate going to the store, but with my iPod I don’t mind so much. HyVee still is annoying because they never have enough checkers and their produce is always expired, but at least I get to listen to some tunes.
This entry was posted on Thursday, September 22nd, 2005 at 5:05 pm and is filed under Technology. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.
