Is streaming making us stupid?

 

 

In the good old days of broadcast only media our content was selected for us by - well - experts. We got reliability. We had news and entertainment and we could tell the difference between the two. We also had a good differential between local and national (terrible for International in the USA but that's another story). When streaming content came along, first we lost many radio stations. Cable too gave us more choice. Then something very weird happened we got Netflix. 

Actually, Netflix was really good. And soon enough it became the largest single unit of bandwidth consumption on the internet. The cable channels were replaced by piles of drivel. The line between paid and editorial was completely lost. What did we do? WE became masters of the universe - er - univers(al) remote. 

We chose only the stuff we liked. No serendipity, no joy of alternative views. We could easily tune them out. Aren't we clever!

But, well what really happened is that we descended into our own echo chamber. It gets worse. The powers that be (yes you know who you are), figured out how to prove how stupid we are. 

So think about it. What makes us so expert in choosing the stuff we should listen to or watch. What credentials do we have for making those good decisions? What are we missing out on?

And yes... how did we get so stupid?

Have you have yourself a nice day (smiley face emoji)...