Media on Demand

I feel like the people in today’s culture are subconsciously consumed with media on demand. Once upon a time individuals had to work around schedules to see the content they wanted. There were limited times and channels on television for watching the news, cartoons, movies, etc. I remember watching ‘The Zone’ from 3pm-6pm every weekday after school. If there was ever a movie I liked that was going to air, I made sure I set up my VCR to catch every minute so I could rewatch it again and again. If you missed it, you missed it. You would have to wait until it aired again, whenever that would be.

Today, media schedules have become a thing of the past. Now we work media around us. With the introduction of PVR, TiVo, Digital Cable Boxes, On Demand movie providers, video streaming, etc. there's no longer a reason to wait for the content we want. If you’ve missed an episode of your favourite show, or simply just want to watch it later, you can stream it from somewhere off the internet. Everything has become so accessible.

A question I want to raise with this is, does media on demand save or waste our time? Yes, now we can skip over the commercials and watch a relaxing tv show or movie when it’s convenient for us, but with everything so accessible, we’re tempted to watch more than we would have when it was limited. Rather than watching an episode per week as intended, some people watch entire seasons in a day. Personally, before I only had the time to keep track of at most maybe 4 different shows, because that was what fit my schedule. Now with internet video streaming, I keep track of at least 10.

With that in mind, does making everything more accessible to the public really in their best interests? I’m not sure. Though with the services they provide, I’m tempted not to ask.

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“The Internet lives where anyone can access it.” – Vinton Cerf