Lauren Denton
I was in the grocery store the other day with Kate, and as I loaded my groceries onto the belt, she picked up a TV Guide magazine and began to flip through it. After a moment, I heard her say, “What’s this?” I turned and saw the still-familiar evening primetime TV schedule — all those lines and boxes with which so many of us grew up. She ran her finger down the black and white print. “Why would anyone use this?”
Now, a caveat — we hardly watch any actual TV anymore. We’re pretty much a Netflix/Hulu/Amazon Prime family. I explained that before we had all these streaming services, people used TV Guide to find out what would be on TV and when. Then I told her about the long-ago guide channel where you’d have to sit and wait as the programs scrolled slowly down the screen. If you missed the channel you were looking for, you had to wait until it scrolled by again.
“That sounds terrible,” she said. “I can’t believe that’s how TV used to be.”
That conversation got me thinking about how my childhood differed from hers, in both small and big ways. The big ways, of course, are monumental — the constant connectivity of cellphones, smartwatches, and WiFi. The entire world — good and bad — at our fingertips through the internet.
Other ways are smaller but no less poignant. These days, we learn about new or popular music via Amazon Music, Spotify, Instagram or YouTube. But I have distinct memories of wanting to hurry back to my parents’ car on Sundays after church so I could hear the tail end of Casey Kasem’s American Top 40 countdown on the way home. Other than maybe seeing a band on a special episode of Full House or Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, the radio was where we learned about new music. Television commercials — those quick three minutes in the middle of an episode — were the time when we’d run to the bathroom or to grab a snack or make a quick phone call. Now we can easily watch one, two, three full episodes without having to miss a minute. If we need a snack, we just conveniently hit pause, then do what we need to do.
Kate occasionally will ask if she can use my phone to call or FaceTime one of her friends. The last time she asked me, she expected me to say no, but I was actually glad she wanted to. Later I told her how I used to chat with my friends not with text messages but actually talking, using verbal words, telling stories about who liked whom and who got in trouble for wearing too-big earrings that day at school. I even told her how once a friend and I watched a whole episode of The Simpsons while on the phone with each other. Liza and I occasionally talked about what was happening on the show, but mostly we just watched and laughed at the same places. Kate thought that was weird, but hopefully she got what I was trying to say about verbal communication and how having actual conversations can be a good replacement for merely sending words and emojis back and forth. (Though I do love a good well-placed emoji).
It’s impossible to say everything was better “back then” when things were slower and simpler, because, well, things were slow and simple. I wouldn’t trade Google Maps, my weather radar (remember having to wait for Local on the 8s from the Weather Channel?), or the ability to send quick texts when I don’t need (or want) to have a whole conversation. But at the same time, it feels impossible to say everything is better now. The ability to be constantly connected brings with it added expectations, responsibilities, and an inability to stay focused on one thing for longer than it takes a new page to load.
Would I choose the slow scroll of the TV Guide channel over the 1,000 options from all our streaming services? Probably not. Would I go back to the three-minute race to the bathroom or the kitchen pantry during a commercial break over that convenient “pause” button? Nope. Would I rather get a friend’s news directly from that friend rather than inhaling news from 100 “friends” during a Facebook deep-dive? Yes, wholeheartedly. Do I want my kids to know the joys of having a two-hour phone conversation about nothing and everything, instead of just texting phrases and emojis? Again, a big yes.
I’m sure every new generation of parents has to learn how to let go of their own childhood memories and accept that, yes, things have changed and, no, we likely won’t be reverting back to “the good old days.” But these are good days, too. Definitely more convenient. I can’t expect my family (or me) to relish the idea of racing around during commercial breaks or giving up Alexa, but I still want to carve out space for the good parts of those “good old days”: plenty of time for non-screen activities, a much less-cluttered brain and the old-fashioned joy of a good phone conversation.
When I’m not writing about my family and our various shenanigans, I write novels and go to the grocery store. My novels are in stores (locally at Little Professor and Alabama Booksmith) and online. You can reach me by email at Lauren@LaurenKDenton.com, visit my website LaurenKDenton.com, or find me on Instagram @LaurenKDentonBooks or Facebook ~LaurenKDentonAuthor.