MULTI-Media: Too Many Options

This statement will date me, but I remember when I was the remote control. It was the very early 70's, we had a Zenith television set...maybe a 17 inch screen...with a total of three available channels (unless you count the PBS channel, which was channel 13 in my city).

I remember my father watching the "6 o'clock news" religiously every night. Prior to 6 p.m., the television was mine. "The Munsters", "The Adams Family", "Speed Racer" and other after school fare dominated our viewing in the late afternoon. But when 6 p.m. rolled around, ownership changed. My father would yell "Sean...put that on channel 6 would you"? In response, I would get up...walk to the front of the living room...grab the clunky channel selector and crank it clockwise until the number 6 was selected. Then, just about the moment I sat back down...he would continue with "Hey...can you turn that up a little please"? This routine continued through the evening...with him yelling commands and me responding by moving the channel selector from channel 6, to channel 10 and then to channel 8...and so forth. Rarely would my father request any of that educational programming you could find on channel 13, which was an unlucky number anyway! I was the perfect remote control for my Dad. I was way ahead of my time...voice activated even-with some degree of intelligence built in so that on occasion I could even anticipate what channel my father would appreciate most-before he even shouted a command!

Later, in the early 80's when cable came to town...things changed. Our menu of 3 channels grew quickly to several, then to dozens, then to hundreds. The evolution, as you know...has continued until today when we have literally thousands of choices in programming at any given moment of the day or night. And the channel changer? Well, it's certainly smarter than I was as a 10 year-old...but I'm not sure the experience is better. Why? Too many choices.

This phenomenon is present not only on the remote control, but in the aisles of grocery stores, the drive-through lanes of fast food restaurants...even the local frozen yogurt place. In the store, I am overcome by cold sweats trying to find the breakfast cereal my wife has asked me to pick up. She wants "Corn Flakes". The problem is...there are about two dozen different kinds of Corn Flake available. When I was growing up...there were "Kellog's Corn Flakes". That's it. Now? Well, there are Gluten Free Organic Corn Flakes, there are "Low Fat Corn Flakes", "Cinnamon Corn Flakes", "Chocolate Corn Flakes"...you get the idea. And is my life really better because of all the choices? To that question, I for one answer a resounding "NO"!

And so it is with media content. The channel selector on my DVR is a vast wasteland of single-spaced choices largely populated by "reality" filler material. To find something that I want to trade a precious half-hour of my life for is next to impossible. If only there were fewer choices, or better yet...a kid in the room who would find the best choices for me based on my demographic profile, my socio-economic status, my geographic location and other data points-and deliver to me fewer choices all of which were highly relevant to me as an individual. My viewing experience would be, well...as effortless as my father's was in the early 70's. The only difference? Today, PBS would be on my short list of must watch content. :)