I heard two predictions recently: the household telephone will vanish completely in the UK within 5 years and similarly that terrestrial television will have ended within 20 years.
Both of these were king when I was a kid. Mates phones on the house phone [when my Dad took the lock off!] and I watched everything - Thunderbirds, Blue Peter, Department S, everything - on the telly. First black and white and from 1970, colour, bought for the World Cup!
But the ground is shifting.
Now our own house phone doesn't get used much at all, although it is an essential lifeline for an elderly member of our family, who rings us every night on it. I can't see the actual landline connection going though because we need it for our router, unless of course something else is invented.
As for the the telly I can see why such a prediction has been made. Young people have all but ditched TV in favour of You Tube, which they watch on a multitude of devices in their rooms. Traditionally programming isn't needed either. You Tube presenters can entertain kids for very little cost.
That's not to say that toddlers and infants don't watch telly. They do and the output from CBBC and CITV is good. Thunderbirds Are Go is currently on and my own Grandson loves Bing and Duggie on the TV.
But things are changing. At the expensive end of the revolution. Netflix and Amazon Prime are the heralds of a new programming, which all other TV channels will have to compete with. Many will fall by the wayside. Like our High Street shops, which are increasingly empty, the next generation of snowflake offspring will determine the future by how they loyally interact with social media and the internet and nothing else.
My own TV tastes are increasingly specific too. Much of what is on - countless channel's worth - is of no interest to me at all. Increasingly I turn to You Tube and free offers on Amazon and Netflix to find a decent film to watch.
Having said that I rely on the TV for News and I watch it religiously in the evenings, which probably accounts for my permanently nervous disposition!
What do you think readers? Are house phones and the TV on their way out?
We still use our home phone, and can't be bothered with a mobile.
ReplyDeleteI think it's a sign of age when the main thing you watch on telly is the news (us too) ~ I remember as a child it was just a dull interruption to the programmes.
Maybe one day mobiles will be shaped like house phones Andy for nostalgists! Glad were not the only ones that watch the news! I know what you mean about how dull it was as a kid. Equally dull were World of Sport and Grandstand, which my Dad watched on Saturdays, capped by the Pools! It went on and on and on. The pits was Wrestling!
DeleteWasn't the mobile responsible for the street corner killing the the Kiosk, Woodsy? Maybe the old house phone will be next on the hit list? Perhaps the mobile is the technological hitman of now :)
ReplyDelete'Wrestling was the pits!'... masked mystery, Kendo Nagasaki will give you a lycra driven piledriver for that comment, ha ha :D
Mick Macmanus was my nemesis Tone!
DeleteTraditional radio is on the way out. Its been replaced by.... You guessed it, the Mobile Phone. Most people under 23 don't even know how to tune an analogue radio.
ReplyDeletei thought as much Bill. My Missus listens to podcasts on the radio on her phone to fall asleep to and she's in her ... she's not as old as me but catching up! Modern kids struggle with analogue watches too to tell the time!
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