Just a short while ago imagining watching television on the bus via a handheld device like a phone or a tablet would have been the stuff of scifi movies. However, it is now not just a reality, but common place! However, it often leaves us wondering how our cellphones became almost interchangeable with our televisions! Let’s take a look at how our viewing habits have changed over the years.
Television As a Group Activity
It has been suggested that the average home now has no fewer than 4 different devices that are used for viewing television content. These device include standard televisions, laptops, tablets and smartphones. In the past there was not even a television in every household! Watching TV was very much a group activity, with the whole family and even a few neighbours gathering around the television. Even when it became the norm for every family to own their own television there was still a group aspect, with everyone gathering around the television in the evening to watch the same program.
However, as technology began to evolve viewers were offered much more choice in what they were watching. Cable and Satellite subscriptions gave us the opportunity to watch a wider selection of channels and as the price of television sets began to fall it became more and more common for households to own multiple television sets. This led to the family groups splitting up during television time and watching different programs in different parts of the house.
Developing Technology Changes Viewing Habits
There is a definite correlation between the advancing technology and changes in our viewing habits. One of the main advances that has shaped television viewing has been the internet. Television and the internet are now intertwined to the extent that most television providers are also offering internet services in a combined package. A good example of this would be the Direct TV plus internet packages that are available.
With the growth of the internet, a new layer of television content emerged in the form of streaming content. This allowed viewers to free themselves from the rigid nature of TV schedules and watch whatever they wanted whenever they wanted with ‘on demand‘ content available through their internet connection. This became increasingly important as our lifestyles changed. People no longer work a standard nine to five pattern, so being able to schedule your favourite television shows around your own lifestyle was a huge breakthrough.
Television Viewers Demand Even More Control
One thing about consumers of any sort is that they are always demanding more. Television viewers are no different. When we got used to being able to watch content whenever was most convenient for us, we began to wonder why we couldn’t choose where to watch television as well. As our lives have become increasingly busy we have begun to look for new ways to watch television. We often do not have the time to sit down at home to catch up on our favourite shows. Streaming content addressed this issue to an extent, allowing us to watch content on laptops, but of course we still demanded even more flexibility.
At the same time as television and internet technology was developing, so too were our mobile phones. The smartphones that we have now are essentially like having a computer that fits into the palm of your hand. With increasingly good quality screens and impressive internet capabilities it was only a matter of time before television made its way onto our mobile phone screens. Having the ability to watch television on a small handheld screen makes it so much more convenient to catch up with our favourite shows in a variety of situations such us on the bus commute to work. The latests statistics show that 45% of people will watch on demand television content using their smartphone. Mobile is definitely the way forward and more and more tv providers are developing on the go apps to make accessing content from smartphones easier.
Thanks to the latest technology, we are no longer chained to our televisions, content can be viewed on mobile devices allowing us to watch TV anywhere and at any time.
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This guest post was written by Neal Bricker. If you would also like to write for us click here.
