A DVR Moment

A few months ago, I was listening to a lecture and looked down to to jot something in my notebook. When I looked up I was half a beat behind and had missed the first part of what seemed to be a rather important statement.

My mind said, “Just hit the replay button.”

What is alarming is not the 1/2 second thought, but that for the next 1/2 second, it seemed like a perfectly reasonable course of action. The DVR replay button does not, of course, work in “real” life, but having a DVR has so changed my relationship to media and information consumption that it had worked itself into my subconscious.

A few weeks later, at home watching TV with my two roommates and a friend, we caught up to the DVR “tape delay” (when you start a show late and can thus fast-forward through bad commercials). There was a moment of awkward silence as we endured a cheesy commercial for god knows what. Our friend whined loudly “I HATE Live TV, why can’t you just fast-forward it, you have DVR!”

She didn’t even have a DVR and she had DVR angst. I related the story of my DVR moment. Instead of the expected laughter all three replied, “Thank GOD, I thought I was the only one!”

You’re not alone.

Technorati Tags: dvr, technology, video