The End of T.V.?

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The box is still there in bedrooms, on its stand or the dresser. Your kids don’t turn it on anymore because television moved to a more private neighbourhood: the cellphone.

Bedroom television sets have gathered so much dust kids write PLEASE DUST ME. Teenagers have gone to college but the box sits there waiting for them to come home for Thanksgiving.

Cellphones take privacy to higher heights, as in pyramid high. Every room had a television because every family member wanted privacy. Kids don’t pay bills so they have no interest in the 7 or 10 o’clock news. They wanted to watch sports, comedy or music videos.

We can even stretch the privacy assumption to include cable. In the stone age, families had a common interest. Survival. This century's family lives under one roof but has different interests. Therefore cable and its 20 + channels, was a must to keep family peace. One author said his wife’s family had cable just to keep his father-in-law out of the way.

We don’t take bedroom television to the basement, the home for old things, because we want it to chew and swallow the proverb: every dog has its day.

By: Nonqaba waka Msimang.

 

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