From CNN.com:
“TiVo guilt” isn’t a new development — a quick Google check offers articles using the phrase dating back at least two years — and it has its parallels with procrastination involving previous technologies. (Who didn’t have a stack of never-watched VHS tapes collecting dust?)But the explosion of TV channels — not to mention TV shows, movies, music and webisodes available via the Internet — has made the situation infinitely worse, says Berens.
“With infinite media, you have infinite choices, and therefore you have infinite opportunity costs,” he says. “Your satisfaction index of the thing you actually choose can never be equivalent to the infinite opportunity costs, so we’re in this position of being behind the cognitive eight-ball all the time.”
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When talking about TV channels I am always reminded of the Simpsons line “200 channels and nothing but cats.” Replace 200 with infinite and that’s just too many cat. The real question, though, is how many channels hotels have to get before you can be guaranteed an episode of Law and Order (or one of the spin-offs) no matter what time of day it is. Clearly when traveling I don’t care much about the opportunity costs involved with entertainment.
“With infinite media, you have infinite choices, and therefore you have infinite opportunity costs,” he says.
What a leap of logic. What percent of television does the average person want to watch?
daedalus702 ought to consider reading the original CNN.com article rather than shooting from the hip based on an excerpt. Indeed, perhaps he should read Barry Schwartz’s “The Paradox of Choice,” which does a fine job of explaining how expanded choice leads to decreased satisfaction in terms of opportunity cost. It’s not a leap of logic: it’s the compression that happens naturally within journalism.
Brad Berens
http://www.mediavorous.com
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