What's more important to you, out of your tv, computer, or mobile phone?
Industry analysts Forrester posed this in a poll, and found tv came tops.
However, looking more closely, tv was bottom in the 18 - 26 age group. A portent for the future: Further evidence that competition for people's attention is fierce, and that tv no longer plays the central role in lives of the young that it once did.
Interestingly, that age group rated computers above phones. Further, computers were tops with more affluent people. It's likely fewer of the less affluent have computers - again, evidence they spend money on tv first. (Well, it's also cheaper.)
Also suggestive that the digital divide is entrenching itself. If you consider computers (and thus internet) absolutely key to one's access to information and knowledge, then this is certainly an issue for public policy makers.
2 comments:
Hi Stephen. Do think, like I do, that the digital revolution is going to change society in the most dramatic way and that we ain't seen nothin' yet? Semiconductor devices were, to me, the most significant inventions of the 20th century but digital electronics will prove to be the next big thing. I think the destiny of TV is to become a part of on-line life.
Hi again Bazza,
(like your site!)
We are in the midst of a fundamental shift that is pretty much akin to the industrial revolution. (Except I don't know whether we've seen a structural shift in societal relationships to match.)
I'd be hard-pressed to identify any single point of innovation responsible, but the internet is certainly a radical shift, in two enormous ways:
1) access to information, ideas and knowledge;
2) far greater opportunities for collaboration, which will again accelerate innovation and change.
Science fiction writers couldn't imagine it all. I can't possibly predict with confidence how far it will go.
What we view in our homes (once just broadcast tv), yes, is also radically changing, to the point where broadcast tv will find it hard to compete with video on demand - that is, a mixture of film, tv-style programs, and home-made stuff. (although there will always be those who are happy enough to just watch what goes past their eyes.)
So what will broadcast tv eventually resemble. Who knows? But it will have to push the envelope to compete.
Stephen
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