The face of television has completely changed within the last fifty years. Shows are now in color, political correctness developed, and diversity has multiplied. Perhaps the most prominent and influential change is the growing variety and number of channels and content commonly available.

As the market and industry grows, more people are producing shows. There are dozens of channels on cable completely devoted to classic movies, sports, news, music, and reality shows. The growth of the industry allows a wider variety of genres. Crime television, reality shows, and cooking shows are an entity of the 21st century as people are hungry for more content.

Junior Aena Patel said, “I believe that it is an encouragement for creativity and an increase of connections worldwide as well as more entertainment.

Other forms of technology has given people more free time than ever before. Laundry machines, dishwashers, and cars are saving us countless hours. Most people choose to fill their time with entertainment such as television, and because the plotlines are broken up into twenty or forty-five minute chunks, it is easy to lose track of the amount of content consumed in a short period of time. “Binge-watching,” or watching hours of a show in a row, is becoming an increasingly common phenomenon.

Luxuries such as Netflix, YouTube, Demand provide more content readily available little or no money. There used to be a time where would have to remember when a show came if they missed it, they would have to wait for a play and hopefully catch it then, which is unimaginable to today’s youth, who have television at their fingertips and numerous apps from large corporations their show’s episodes minutes after initially airing.

Patel said she “would die” if she didn’t have luxuries and dealt with the watching experience previous generations.

Platforms such as YouTube and Netflix also creators to reach a much larger audience without screening process, arguably decreasing the quality content. CGI, or computer generated images, has incredible progress within the last fifty years, and has become increasingly accessible. Many YouTubers use rudimentary special effects in videos that necessarily require fake explosions.

As with everything, progress has both numerous upsides and downfalls.