This one is for all those who were born in the late 70s or early 80s. Flashback 18-20 years to the time we were kids. We would wait for the one hour in the evening which, in our time tables read 'TV'. One hour when we would lose ourselves in Disney World; with Mickey, Minnie, Donald, Uncle Scrooge, Baloo, Tom and Jerry. Or Sunday mornings, when the entire family, mums included, would finish all their morning chores by 10 am to catch the weekly episode of Ramayan and Mahabharat. Doordarshan was our life, cable TV a luxury meant only for spoilt kids, a banned item if you wanted to be a “good child”. Fast forward to today. Life without cable TV seems like dal with no salt in it. Be it elders or the children. I just thought if we were to write out a comparison between TV 20 years ago and TV today the way we used to compare stalactites and stalagmites in our exam answer books, it would read something like below:
I guess you get the general idea. Information is great, but where do we draw a line between information and non-information. Less information seems to have more retention power and hence is more effective. We still remember every episode of Surabhi and Duck Tales we watched. Today you can’t even track the number of cartoons available on the multitude of cartoon channels, thanks to which children don’t even want to explore channels like Discovery or History. About how these cartoons impact the minds of the kids is a different question altogether. Will put that into a separate blog. This one was just a statement of my observations, some fodder for you to chew on. Happy musing…. :)
| TV Then | TV Today |
| Number of hours dedicated to TV = 9/week | Number of hours dedicated to TV = indefinite. Mostly depends on the electricity or inverter charge |
| Number of channels aired = 2, DD 1 meant for the old people, due to the boring (read that news, views and documentaries aired on it) and DD2 meant for the younger generation, thanks to the songs and cartoons | Number of channels aired = depends on how many you want to buy |
| Number of channels watched = 2 | Number of channels watched = all. Note: Number of channels absorbed into your brain = none |
| Programs watched – depends on the age of the viewer. Mostly 2, half an hour long cartoons in case of those less than 15 years and a single, hour long serial in case of those greater than 18 years per day | Number of programs watched =indefinite. Mostly browsing between multiple cartoon channels at a frequency of 5 min for those LT 10 years, multiple music and movie channels at same frequency for those between 10-20 years and multiple saas-bahu serials for those above 20 years. Viewership above 20 years is mostly female. |
| News programs watched = 1 News knowledge gained = national news, international events, weather and sports for the current day | News programs watched = indefinite News knowledge gained = 0 |
| Dinner table discussion = parents, children, school discussion, general discussion or TV news | Dinner table discussion = non existent Dinner = cartoon/teleserial |
I guess you get the general idea. Information is great, but where do we draw a line between information and non-information. Less information seems to have more retention power and hence is more effective. We still remember every episode of Surabhi and Duck Tales we watched. Today you can’t even track the number of cartoons available on the multitude of cartoon channels, thanks to which children don’t even want to explore channels like Discovery or History. About how these cartoons impact the minds of the kids is a different question altogether. Will put that into a separate blog. This one was just a statement of my observations, some fodder for you to chew on. Happy musing…. :)
