America is a land of choices. It’s one of the things that make this country great, no doubt, especially when we’re choosing where and how to live our lives. But when it comes to entertainment? The choices have gotten a little out of control.
There are seventy bazillion channels on cable TV. There are endless numbers of restaurants with every cuisine under the sun. There are new movies out every weekend, and new DVD releases every Tuesday. There are dozens of fitness classes and programs, and even more choices of clothes to wear while exercising. Been in Old Navy lately? There are approximately a hundred and thirty-seven different kinds of jeans.
I’m all for choice, but once in a while I long for the good old days. When there were no VCRs, much less DVD players, and you waited impatiently for Thanksgiving to roll around to catch The Wizard of Oz on TV. When you ordered in pizza or Chinese, period. When jeans were Levis or Lees or Wranglers, and that was that. When exercising meant getting down on the floor to do sit-ups, just like your gym teacher intended.
Now, not only is there way too much to choose from, there’s the constant urge to choose it all, and the media itself feeds the craving. We’ve got the Internet, TV, radio, email, cell phones—a million ways to get reminders and pitches and ads. Can’t possibly watch everything you like on a given night? Get yourself a TiVo and record it for later. Too many good movies out in one weekend? Don’t worry, they’ll be out on DVD (with extras!) in a month or two.
It’s the worst for me with books. There are classics I missed growing up or in school, but then there are the new releases. And last year’s releases. And sometimes the year before that. I’ve been meaning to read The Time Traveler’s Wife for a year now, and just heard it’s been optioned for film. (Ack! Now the pressure’s really on.)
Part of it is simple interest—I like paranormal stuff, for instance, so the array of new releases in that genre has elbowed to the front of the line of my to-be-read pile. But some of it is the sense of missing out, of being excluded from a larger conversation. I just read Patricia Gaffney’s Wickerley trilogy a year ago, because I was tired of seeing references to it on discussion groups and blogs and having no idea what all the fuss was about.
Of course, reading is more time-consuming than an hour of TV or a few extra minutes figuring out what rise and/or cut I need in jeans. I’ve got three kids, a husband I like to actually talk to once in a while, and deadlines—reading often gets pushed off till bedtime, when I doze off after a few precious pages. The situation might be different for someone else, who works at an office all day, for instance, and gets time to read on the train or bus but has little time to catch up on Lost or Desperate Housewives.
And I wonder sometimes if having too many choices is a good thing. I love the variety of books available today—romance alone has enough subgenres to count on two hands, and I love most of them. Yet all we hear is how book sales are suffering. Are readers, faced with too many choices, retreating out of sheer confusion? Or out of a wait-and-see attitude when it comes to lots of new authors and not a lot of cash to spend on books? Has watching TV finally edged out reading as a pleasurable pastime? Is anyone else out there having trouble keeping up, not only with what you want to read, but what you feel you should read to stay current?
No related posts.
I’d love to see concrete numbers on sales. If the overall sales figure stays where it is, or grows, but individual authors’ figures decline, then I’d guess the buying choices are being spread out more.
If total book sales are down, I think we’d need a lot more information to determine the reason or, more likely, multiple reasons. Demographics could be just one area. Do Baby-Boomers read more than Gen Xers or GenYers? We boomers are “aging” (Ack! Gag!), so as our population numbers decline, do our reading dollars do, too?
So many things to ponder. So few real answers. *g*
Great post! So true, and it just gives me one more thing to think about today.:mrgreen:
TV edged out reading years ago. I’m betting readership is actually up from where it would be if readers didn’t have so many choices because now readers can get something they like. Sure choice can be intimidating, but it’s a lot more likely the economy is what’s messing with sales figures.
As a reader I’m a big fan of choice. As a writer I’d only say we should limit choice if the only choice is me.
Kidding! Sheesh.
Alice
[...] Amy Garvey on Romancing the Blog has a few things to say about choice. It recalls to mind a trip to the grocery store. Not just any grocery store. Woodman’s in Madison Wisconsin. They make Walmart foods look like a Quickie Mart. Oh, to have a store like that around here. [...]
With so many choices, the role of the “influentials” grow in importance.
For example: I have a couple places that I go for my news bites. If these bloggers or media people mention that something is worth digging into, then I dig. Otherwise, I figure its not worth knowing.
So my choices are filtered.
Oh – how I agree! I sometime feel so overwhelmed by the choices that I choose nothing. Especially with all the new tv shows on lately. I can’t keep up with them all so have simply stopped watching everything but LOST. Which means I’m reading more (that’s a good thing). But I have soooo many books on my ‘to be read’ shelf that I’m overwhelmed by those choices, too!! Should I read the romances that have been stacking up (because that’s what I write), or those literary classics I’ve been dying to get to (because that’s what I like)? Then there are the research books (for writing) and the 7 magazines I subscribe to that have been piling up month after month… Ahhhhh! Think I’ll go take a bath. But first let me just read a couple of blogs I like …
I’ve given up on “keeping up” with current reads just for the sake of joining in a conversation. I would guess the popular authors or books with alot of buzz aren’t seeing a decrease in sales, but for everyone else, I’m guessing the sales are spread out ALOT more.
Yet I wouldn’t want to see less variety. Personally, I think I simply need more hours in the say to do what I need, then spend the rest reading.
I have to admit, my TBR pile usually remains pretty short, simply because I inhale books. Ebooks, paperbacks, hardbacks, whatever, if it’s something I want to read, I read it.
It’s taken a few years to train my husband to NOT interrupt me when I’m reading, but he’s learning, (finally.)
So for me, especially since I watch pretty much one televsion show a season, finding that reading time isn’t hard.
It’s pulling myself away from the book to watch television (or do housework)
I tend not to read fiction when I’m writing, so my TBR pile is pretty impressive. But you can’t see it. I’m an eBook kinda guy, so the stack takes up no room at all. (However, I have noticed my pocket-PC feels a bit heavier of late.)
The overload of choices has driven me away from live TV. I only see shows at the end of the day when I’m with my wife and she’s watching one of her favorites. Usually the last thing I see as I fall asleep is the first half of House.
Internet? I overloaded long ago. Five sites I visit regularly — RtB being high on that list — then I have to get off. (I think I posted here about my timer a while back.)
Now that you’ve got me thinking about it, I have to say the overload of choices has actually cut down on the number of things I do.
It’s not the choices it’s the method of delivery. People are lazy. The Mass will almost always choose the passive act of watching to tv, to the more active reading a book. Perhaps we should see a book channel, much like those music channels, where the screen is dark, or has plesant still images but the audio is a book being read.
Michelle, that’s really cool idea!