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How An iPad Killed My Television

This article is more than 10 years old.

The Lonely Television (Photo credit: Medhi)

My iPad has just killed my television. It was murder, no doubt, but you could also say my TV died of loneliness. Maybe even heartbreak.

I'd long ago stopped watching the TV in my den. Earlier today, I realized that everything I care about on television is now available on my iPad or iPhone. I then went into the den and found the Sony big screen lifeless, though I think that was because the cats stepped on the power strip and turned it off. Cheesy, maybe, but symbolic enough for me.

I am not the TV addict I once was, but both television and I have changed. The economics of TV have forced program quality down, news is now universally available online, and cable TV bills keep rising as the value I place on television has crashed. The less television I watch, the more it seems to cost me.

For personal viewing, the iPad and even my iPhone are great. They are always with me and the screen size is fine for one (iPhone) or two (iPad) people. If I don't need the video, it is easy to set the device aside and just listen.

Wi-Fi follows me pretty much everywhere and 3G works well enough if that is all I have.

With iTunes, I keep plenty of content on my devices. If a broadband connection isn't available for downloads or streaming, I still have more entertainment than I can consume. (One of my hobbies is collecting old radio programs. At 6MB per half-hour program, it's easy to carry around months of non-duplicating 24-hour listening. If you are interested in OTR, drop me a note.)

It will be a while before my old big screen TV actually goes away, but it isn't likely I will watch it for more than an occasional DVD or VHS tape. All those giant screens down at Costco interest me not in the least, except when my old CNET colleague Brian Cooley appears on them. But even Brian, program director when we did CNET Radio together, can't convince me to buy a giant Vizio.

The iPad and iPhone are just too convenient and cable TV too idiotic and expensive for the love affair with my TV set to continue. Unless you have some reason -- like kids or a sports/movie addiction -- for investing in a gigantic screen, it is hard for me to imagine why someone would.

Of course, I just got a telephone call from a friend who leaves the TV on even when she isn't home and uses it at a constant source of background noise and occasional movies. She admits to having stopped reading books as a result, which I warned her seemed like a bad sign to me.

One of the problems with being so awash in media -- besides what it does to my Attention Deficit Disorder -- is that as the options increase we start to use media very differently, in some cases, that those around us. The collective national experience that radio and later television defined may be gone for good, though perhaps replaced by Twitter and Facebook. Social media, collectively, gets more of my time today than entertainment television.

Given the competition, it's not surprising that TV hardly matters to me anymore. Or that a little screen is all I require. But it does make me a little sad. At its best, TV could be excellent and bring people together. I have found nothing that really replaces it. But today's TV is pretty lousy and I think TV left me long before I left it.