Don’t throw out the goggle box in the corner just yet

A Different View with Dave O’Connell

It’s just a generation ago that people designed the rest of their living room around their television; all the chairs and sofas were carefully placed to maximise the view of the box in the corner.

Then the family sat as one to watch the soaps or the sport, with one or two on the floor in front of the box if there weren’t enough seats to go around.

Then technology began to rear its head and the small set-top became a behemoth the size of a small car, with a massive big back on it to house the tube that gave you the revolutionary picture quality that would case today’s viewers to scoff.

And just as they inflated in size, the next evolution saw them flattened and widened as though someone had gone at them with a metal presser.

Suddenly they no long took up the whole corner; now you could hang them from the wall over the fireplace where JFK used to be.

TV’s also became affordable which meant you were no longer limited to just one; now there were televisions in the kitchen and the bedroom and the man cave and the playroom…more tellies than people in some houses.

But then it took another turn – and we no longer needed TV’s at all. Because you could see all of the shows in the world at the touch of a button on your laptop or tablet or phone.

A decade ago, when we were doing up our house, the lads – then hovering just below their teenage years – petitioned for televisions in their bedrooms.

Their pleas fell on deaf ears for fear that, if they could watch the telly in the rooms, there was a fair chance we’d never see them again.

Now it doesn’t make a difference – they wouldn’t watch a telly in their rooms even if they had one.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.

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