In my opinion, watching TV was a better experience and healthier and better, including for - but not limited to - children.

(I’ll preface this by saying I am referring to German TV, where you would get one break of commercial ads of 5-8 minutes within a show of 30 minutes, and two such breaks within a show of 60 minutes. I know in the US you get more, shorter commercial breaks. I think that makes the argument a bit stronger; however, I think it still applies to US TV as well.)

First off, you needed discipline. You want to watch that one show that airs at 3:10? You better be at home at 3:10 then. You had to make plans and keep this scheduled like an appointment, or plan to record it and program a VHS recorder.

Second, you also had to focus. No rewinding. If you miss it, you’ll have missed it. Stay focused. No phone scrolling, no attention span shortening, no second screen. You better focus your attention.

Third, you don’t binge watch. I love binge watching as much as the next person. But is it good for you? Cliffhangers are there for a reason. Having this excitement and thrill be resolved within seconds by starting the next episode takes away from the experience. Already knowing that you could just click on “play” any time you want takes something away from having to wait, waiting to know, thinking about it, imagining scenarios how something will play out in your head.

You get your daily or weekly dose of dopamine from this show, and that’s it. You don’t go on a bender. You are also automatically limiting your screen time. Especially for kids I think that is an important point. You can watch peppa pig endlessly on youtube, until you’re absolutely sick of it, or until your parents put an end to it. But if there is just one episode of pokemon a day, that’s it. You gotta wait until tomorrow. There’s nothing you can do.

Let’s even say you watch multiple shows in a row. Pokemon, Sailor Moon, Art Attack, Galileo, The Simpsons. Every show gives you something else. Another plot, other emotions, other characters. You have to follow different storylines or have some non-fiction program points. That’s more diverse than watching 5 hours of handmaid’s tale or breaking bad in a row.

And even ads. Ads allow you to zap. Allow you to release this thrill that we now do with scrolling. But it, again, is self limited - you better be back in time before the commercials end. Who of us has not had days where they spent more time looking at trailers and thumbnails on Netflix etc than they spend watching an actual movie or show.

I have to add that I absolutely love your point about isolation and watching alone. I will absolutely add this the next time I am arguing that TV was better for our brains, kids, health, and sociality.

I even feel like when people from the same household are watching the same show, they now prefer to watch it alone in their rooms at their own comfort and pace. How sad is that? Is it more comfortable? Yeah sure, maybe. But TV was more social. Having to be quiet for the sake of the others. Waiting to ask “wait what did he say I didn’t get it” until there is a good time and waiting to reply until there is a good time again. This is effort. This is socializing. This is community. Using quotes from the show you watched as inside jokes.

Man I really miss TV.

There was a time where the next day at school/work after a big episode of a popular tv show was on and it was the talk of the day. Now theres much more shows to watch that whatever the network chooses to play, and its great getting reccomendations from friends & coworkers, but it also does suck a bit when im super excited about this show i have been watching and i want to talk about it, but the person im talking to hasnt heard of it/watched it yet, or they arent up to the same episode as you.

Now, even when I watch cable, I’m not sure very many people are watching at the same time because a lot of people are DVRing it

Reminds me of Mic The Snare’s I Only Listened To The Radio For A Month

I remember my sister and I watching the movie A Little Princess on tv multiple times but always missing the beginning. We didn’t know the name of the movie until we came across the book.

First, most people aren’t going to do that. Second, there’s a difference between opting for randomness and having it forced on you.

Now about the idea of the older shows having more self contained episodes; OP is correct. It was the rise of night time soap opera like ‘Dallas’ and miniseries like “Roots” and ‘Sho-Gun’ that made networks/producers see that people wanted extended stories.

I miss those nature shows. They are way more interesting than they sound on paper. Thanks for reminding me of those and solving my analysis paralysis.

You might enjoy blippo plus.
I just heard about it on the Post Games podcast