timxu

As printed in my column “Technophiliac” in the Yale Daily News.

The pace of modern life has accelerated with time. As a society, we spend less time sitting down and more time moving from place to place. When we do sit down, it’s most likely in front of a computer. This is especially true for us students — the younger generation — who are now entering mainstream adult life. So where, then, does television fit into this equation?

We grew up watching TV. For me, at least, Saturday morning cartoons became a tradition. After-school shows, too, were hard to skip. Missing “The Magic School Bus” was almost as bad as missing the actual school bus. Yet today, few of us find the time to sit down and watch TV regularly. What was once a daily event has now dwindled to sporadic viewings, governed not by TV Guide but by our own schedules. I may say that I can’t possibly miss the next episode of “The Office,” but when Thursday night rolls around, I often find myself too busy to sit down.

I’m not alone in this sentiment; other Yalies interviewed expressed similar views.

“I don’t watch TV very often,” Santiago Correa ’12 said. “I don’t have time to adhere to its strict schedule.”

But perhaps that sense of busyness is a product of our circumstances. High school and college are certainly a great deal busier than the earlier years of our lives. TV is still filled with a lineup of popular shows, which would not exist if there weren’t a steady viewership.

That said, there’s no denying that television is losing its place at the center of domestic life. The computer, along with the Internet, is taking over. Families that used to huddle around the television set are now split across the house.

Now, just as television replaced the radio decades ago, the computer is replacing TV.

It’s only natural, then, that the next revolution — and, perhaps, the last — in television is at the hands of the Internet. Hulu.com, a joint venture by NBC and Fox, is a prime example of this web-based revolution. It offers nearly every show on NBC and Fox, along with some other channels, for free. Episodes are often released a day after they air on TV. There is no strict schedule to follow, no time to block off for a specific show. There are also shorter commercial breaks — fifteen to thirty seconds rather than the three-minute breaks on TV. Because it’s possible to determine exact viewership online, Hulu can sell concrete blocks of ads, which generates just as much, if not more, revenue as the traditional television commercial.

There’s a fast-approaching future in which TV shows become Internet shows, and we no longer have to get our weekly hour of satisfaction at a specific day and time. There are already “made-for-Internet” shows, such as the made-for-MySpace show “QuarterLife” and Joss Whedon’s serial Web musical “Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog.”

With the steady increase in Web speeds, the video quality of online content is also quickly eclipsing that of cable. In that future, televisions could stream their content not from cable or satellite providers, but from the Internet — straight from the source. When NBC streamed the Beijing Olympics live from their Web site, the first bell of death tolled for traditional television. As more made-for-Internet shows emerge, the ringing will continue.

The last bell, the death knell of TV, will ring when we are watching live events, newscasts, and even “Good Morning America” on our laptops or cell phones — whenever, wherever we want.

So I, feeling in a particularly nastalgic mood, browsed through my now defunct xanga. It was quite interesting, trying to figure out what I was thinking all those years ago. But then I came across this. I don’t remember who I wrote this about. But I wish I did.

“don’t worry. it’ll all be fine — i promise. don’t let guises and whims fool you. i’ve found what i’ve been looking for — you. i didn’t even realize it until recently, but there’s just something about you that makes me feel at home. with you, i can be something other than boring old me. i know the cliche is “with you i can be myself”, but it’s different. for good or for bad it’s different. i didn’t know what i wanted; i didn’t know exactly what i needed until you came along. you made it all right. everything clicked together; i stopped seeing life in black and white. you gave it color. i view everything i do with a new perspective and my motivation has changed. i’m a better person. you made me realize that there’s more to life than i subconciously made out in the beginning. heck, i don’t even know if you realize what you did for me; to me. thanks. i guess it doesn’t matter where life takes me and i guess it doesn’t really matter if you’re even there. but i will never forget what you did for me these few days. you changed me indefinitely without really meaning to. but i must give you credit, because it was you and you alone that did this for me. my life is forever changed; my vision; my view; my life: it’s better now. thank you for being there. thank you for being who you are. i love you.”

-September 20, 2005

As printed in my column “Technophiliac” in the Yale Daily News.

Emotions can be quite the wild animal. I’d spent a month at Yale, happily enjoying my new life, making friends, growing close to people who I’d not known a mere month ago, and having a generally easy transition into college life. I still talked to my friends from high school on AIM and such, but I didn’t really think about the fact that I was two hundred miles away from the kids still stuck in high school, and even farther from some of my peers.

Then I went home.

I went home for my high school marching band’s annual home competition, to help out as an alumni, and to see everyone again. When I got home and saw my brother, I felt an upwelling of emotion hit me. It’s almost like the feeling you get in a really sad movie when that heart-wrenching moment happens near the end. In my obliviously frenzied life at college, I had forgotten how much I missed him. My parents, too, escaped my emotions while I was away. I’d forgotten what it was like to be able to speak freely and openly about my life without fear of prejudice or misconception.

And then I saw my friends, especially the few I shared my greatest passions with. These were the people who shared my love for the band program and the group of teenagers bound by it. The people who I spent countless hours talking and laughing about the one thing that permanently brought us together. The people who grew into themselves alongside me, who helped shape me into the person I am today. The people who crossed my mind too few times throughout the first month.

So we talked. We talked about our lives in college or high school, we talked about the band, we talked about each other and ourselves. We laughed like we were still part of the same group; we felt our kinship reignite with each hug and each smile. And when I sat on that old, creaky gray chair again, I watched, with pride, the legacy I helped leave. I watched the kids enjoy high school like I did, enjoy each other like we did. I remembered, if only momentarily, our proudest moments over the years. I remembered our shared joys and sorrows, triumphs and failures. And I realized, again, that I didn’t love the program for what it gave me; no, I loved the program because of the people within it, the people who gave me far more than any of them know.

And that’s why I felt that same upwelling of emotion after it was all done. Driving alone through the darkness after saying my last goodbyes, I felt it. In the frenzy to start a new chapter in my life, I had forgotten what it felt like to be with the people who defined the last. When the day ended, as we scattered to our new lives across the country, I really missed it. We’re confined now to sporadic days over the course of the years during which we can come together and relive a special time in each of our lives. And so I missed it.

We created something special in our four years in high school, a part of which will always be in my heart. And as for those few with whom I truly shared this love of mine, I know you feel it too. Our lives are diverging, traveling on paths spread too many ways, but our hearts, or at least the small part that will always remember, still travel together.

I miss you guys.