What does “Watching Television” Even Mean?

Growing up in the late 90s and early 2000s, I used the term “watching television” in some way almost daily. More often than not, I used the shorter midwest terms, “watching”, “what’s on?”, and “TV”. The long word, television, was something that teachers and the upper-class Pleasant Valley students said.

Now terms involving television have transitioned into terms of streaming service and “watch something”. Much like saying Kleenex instead of tissue, my family says Netflix instead of TV.

Using Technology

When I am watching video programming it is usually with my mother during a meal. We sit on the couch and watch something on my computer. TV dinners are now computer dinners, though that doesn’t seem to roll off of the tongue quite as well.

Netflix and Youtube are our go-to's. Our favorite is Disney+, but I couldn’t afford it this year. We do heartily miss the days of Hallmark and the black and white classics of TCM, but we are happy with what we are able to have. The pro of streaming service is, that if you get just one, it is a 10th of the price that cable is, but it is hard to stop at just one.

Multiple subscriptions can add up, especially upgrades to eliminate advertisements. In fact, studies show that cost is the #2 reason people cancel a video streaming subscription (n.d., 2022). Costs are rising. Gallagher (2019) says, “[AT&T] will charge $14.99 a month for the service -- equal to the current cost of its stand-alone HBO Now app but above almost every other streaming service save for the most expensive tier of Netflix” (Gallagher, 2019). This goes to show that I am not the only one to have to give up on my favorite streaming service.

Are Mobile Devices Important?

When it comes to watching videos, I never thought that mobile devices were as important to me as other people. However, when I looked further into the issue I realized that I can’t go to sleep without watching and listening to ASMR on my mobile phone. I also watch videos during breaks and lunches while working. This is backed up by a study done in China on the most popular streaming service, PPTV, for 2 weeks in 2012.

The study shows that there are 2 peaks in mobile video streaming: the first happens around lunchtime from 1-2 PM, and the second is the largest and happens around 11 PM (Zhou, Guo, Chen, Nie, & Zhu, 2014, p. 3). In conclusion, mobile devices are extremely important as they are used daily by much of the population, including me.