How We Watch TV
From the use of subtitles to viewing times, television habits can vary even within the same household. This is an edition of The Wonder Reader, a newsletter in which our editors recommend a set of stories to spark your curiosity and fill you with delight. Sign up here to get it every Saturday morning. In 2018, Daniel H. Pink wrote that he organizes his TV diet into couch shows and phone shows. Couch shows are streamed in a specified place, on a comparably large screen. Phone shows are the ones he watches during the interstitial moments of my lifea long wait at an airport gate, a late-night Uber ride, and so on. Pink argues that the shortening attention span of todays consumers opens the door for a new form of entertainment that creators might want to capitalize onin other words, why dont more streaming services embrace the distinct category of the phone show? If youre someone who saves television for a night at home with a bowl of popcorn, you might find Pinks argument blasphemous. Or you might be a phone-only viewer these days. As our lives change, so do the ways we consume entertainment. Wildly different viewing habits can exist even within the same household. Todays reading list explores what each of us might really mean when we say, Im going to watch some TV. Our TV Habits Why Is Everyone Watching TV With Subtitles On? By Devin Gordon Its not just you. The World Needs Netflix Minis By Daniel H. Pink To understand how viewing habits have changed, consider the difference between the couch show and the phone show. The Hidden Cost of Cheap TVs By Justin Pot Screens have gotten inexpensiveand theyre watching you back. Still Curious? Other Diversions P.S. If youd asked me what the ideal TV-watching experience was 10 years ago, I wouldve sung the praises of watching Gilmore Girls or The O.C . on my tiny, portable DVD player. Looking back, I wonder if that was my original phone show experience. Isabel