My Kids Don’t Know How to Watch TV

Advancements in technology are, for the most part, great. Take what I am doing right now for example. I’m sitting in a coffee shop using free internet that somehow is beaming its way to my computer. Full transparency, I have no idea how WiFi actually works or what the hell the difference is between any amount of G’s. All I know is that I have a magic machine that puts the world at my fingertips nowhere where my fingertips are in the world. Such is the relationship with technology of somebody who remembers life before the internet. My kids do not have that relationship.

It has been true of every next generation since there have been next generations, but my kids have only known a world with technology that I had to adapt to. I have to believe there were primitive parents out there telling their children that they didn’t always have the wheel. You had to drag the animal carcass back to the fire, it took 13 hours to get there, and that’s how it was and you liked it. The technology changes but the situation is timeless. Also timeless, is the parental idea that your way was better and your kids don’t know what’s good for them. Insert my kid’s relationship with TV, and my relationship with that.

My kids only know streaming. The idea that a show would only be on a certain day at a specific time that is determined not by them is complete nonsense to them. Telling them that Santa Claus picks what shows people get to watch based on where they rank on the nice list would make more sense to them. (Site Note: that is a genius idea to use to Santa to both manipulate behavior and to limit screen time. Two birds one fanciful stone.) It isn’t like they need to wait for the next episodes of shows to be released either, because for the most part all the shows they watch are several years old. The only new they got into was “Wizards Beyond Waverly Place” and when they watched to the point where the new episodes hadn’t been released yet, I’m pretty sure they thought that was that and they stopped watching. Which brings me to the worst part of how my kids watch TV – they watch a show to death.

Like locusts moving from field to field extracting anything of sustenance or value from the land, my kids move from show to show latching on and devouring every episode over and over until no actual entertainment value remains. For the better part of the last year they have watch, re-watched, and watched again episode after episode of “Wizards of Waverly Place” and “Elena of Avalor.” In a world of nearly endless entertainment options, they watch two shows. Part of me is grateful that despite the vast library of content they have access to, they are content with a small portion. In a way, I appreciate their minimalist tendencies. Though in another way, what the hell is the matter with them? Not only do they watch the same shows over and over again, they watch the same episodes repeatedly. It isn’t like they are cycling through the seasons, they go back and re-watch the same handful of episodes with complete disregard for any plot line that crosses multiple episodes. The idea that shows were meant to be watched in a certain order for the sake of the story making sense is lost on them.

To them, entertainment options are self-contained bits of content. A single song, not an album. A single show, not a season. A single YouTube video, not anything that requires any context at all. If anything, the one they do understand comes in a series devoid of technology – books. Books come in series, and each book has a number. Baby-Sitters Little Sister and Dogman are numbered, and they understand when they have read one of them, they read a different one next. My daughter will spend a considerable amount of time on our library’s website looking for the next book she can request, and will patiently wait days while it is on hold until she can check it out. This is in sharp contrast to the four seconds she spends scrolling through the Disney+ menu until she finds the episode of Wizards where Justin goes on the date and ends up kissing some guy’s belly.

Telling my kids about how I used to watch TV is the new walking to school up hill both ways. A badge of honor for the fortitude that only having seven channels to watch built in me. Though even my example of how good my kids have it is lost on them. They don’t know what a channel is. To them Disney+ is a channel, Hulu is a channel, and PBS Kids is a channel. They only know this because when they ask for a show or movie that isn’t on one of those, I tell them “we don’t get that channel.” That is the only context they have for different sources providing different options. Otherwise, everything they want is always available all the time. I dare not even try to explain the Disney Vault to them, I would only be wasting my breath.

The only hardship of my childhood entertainment that has now been thrust upon my children are commercials. A few months ago we changed from the ad-free Disney+ to having commercials, and oddly enough they seemed to enjoy this novel new disruption in their viewing. They quickly had favorite commercials, and because each ad break usually shows the exact same ads, had them memorized. I’m pretty sure my kids can recite multiple Capital One or Marriott Bonvoy ads word for word. They also view the function of ads differently. I think they think they are supposed to watch them. They will sit and watch the commercials, then ask to pause the show so they can go get a drink or go to the bathroom.

Though, why wouldn’t they just pause the show that everyone is watching because it fits their entertainment need of the moment? They live in a world where content is consumed completely on individual terms. If my daughter doesn’t want to watch what everyone else is watching on TV, she’ll get out a laptop and stream something else. In the same room with headphones on. Just because she doesn’t want to watch Mickey Mouse Clubhouse doesn’t mean she doesn’t want to be part of the group. It seems that is what advances in technology have brought about – being included in the group, yet having your group experience completely customized to your needs.

Well, my wife and I have instructed a new rule to bring back how it was before such individualized entertainment. The kids are only allowed to watch Wizards of Waverly Place on Fridays. In our house, that is now the only day it airs. It took a few Mondays and Tuesdays of reminding, but they caught on. My kids have never been more interested in what day of the week it is. It is summer, so they don’t have the schedule of school to mark the days. Their only point of reference is now being allowed to watch Wizards or not. Technology has taken man from measuring the passage of time with complex arrangement of rocks to viewing Selena Gomez on demand. Somewhere in between kids forgot how to read an analog clock and watch episodic TV in the appropriate manner.