FutureFive New Zealand - Consumer technology news & reviews from the future
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Tue, 17th Jun 2014
FYI, this story is more than a year old

I still find it weird when people say they don’t own a television. I always look at them like the are weird hipsters who sit around and knit while discussing beard lengths instead of talking animatedly about Breaking Bad or Game of Thrones.

Back in the day, people who didn't have televisions were the conservative types who thought televisions rotted your brain. These days, people don’t have televisions not because they are bad, but because they have become absolutely unnecessary.

Television has always been the more dominant screen in households, and still is. But as television shows and movies become more available and easy to use on personal devices – whether it’s on mobile phones, laptops or tablets - it's becoming far more 'normal' for people to not own televisions, and not just because they're hipsters.

Marketers have to start considering the mobile option when developing their strategies for viewing. They will have to start thinking about how they can target people who prefer mobile devices more effectively than they do for those of us who still prefer a big black screen as the focal point of their living rooms.

I think the mobile screen will supercede the television screen at some point. With streaming sites, subscription sites like Netflix, on demand sites, illegal downloads and people sharing downloaded files, the need to use your television is becoming non-existent. Furthermore, with waiting for new shows or episodes to be released on normal television, especially here, people get impatient, especially when this content is ready and waiting for you online.

As I sit here writing this article I am looking around my living room, and all three people in it are watching TV, including myself. But we are all doing something else as well, which makes me wonder how many people multitask while they are watching TV or, more likely, how many people aren't. TV, laptop and cell phone – how many screens do we need? It’s getting a bit ridiculous.

The big square boxes of televisions of days passed are now historical objects. I wonder if in 10 years, kids will be going, what are those thin, flat black screens? They’re like giant iPads stuck to the wall. Scary, but inevitable.