Few days back when I returned home, I tried to unwind myself and watch movies on television. I was worried that some of my roommates might snatch the remote from my hand for watching their favourite programmes. But none of them did so as they were spending time on their own laptops and smartphones. While some of them were watching latest movies on laptops, some guys were glued to social networking sites. Some of them were chatting with their friends on mobile phones through whataspp. Three four years back many of my roommates used to compete with each other for watching their favourite shows. There used to be a huge quarrel between two guys while one wanted to watch sports while other was keen to view latest Hollywood flicks.
Some guys who don’t understand English language would say “arre bhai kuch Hindi movie laga do, humko angrezi samaj main nahi aata.” On the other hand, guys who were fluent with English would ask them to read the subtitles being written below. But things has changed drastically now after the advent of smartphones and laptops as many of them are watching less television. May be they find the content available on laptop more interesting than television programmes. Even a survey was conducted by media research firm which found that there has been a huge reduction in the number of hours spent by youth watching televisions. Now most of them watch TV shows, movies on laptop and mobile phones. Thus even companies have realised this as they are making shows targeting youth so that they can consume the content through mobile phones and laptops. Nowadays mobisodes and webisodes are becoming popular as youth can watch them as per their own convenience anywhere, anytime. Thus they need not worry about missing their favourite shows as most of them are available on line. Even television has changed as there is a technology to record your favourite shows and watch them later. Leading television channels have started video on demand services targeting youth audience.
Young people continue to watch their favourite shows, but they are streaming them on computers and phones to a greater degree than their parents or grandparents do. It has long been predicted that these new media would challenge traditional television viewing, but this is the first significant evidence to emerge in research data. If the trends hold, the long-term implications for the media industry are huge, possibly causing billions of dollars in annual advertising spending to shift away from old-fashioned television towards digital media.
(The views expressed by the author in the article are his/her own.)
