There’s a funny phenomena Aunty has noticed since getting a ReplayTV, and which she’s since confirmed with all of her friends and colleagues who own TiVo or ReplayTV recorders - contrary to what one might think, you actually end up watching less television rather than more once you have one.

In fact, in Aunty’s house, we’ve probably watched fewer than ten hours of television the entire year, despite having a ReplayTV disk full of shows which we genuinely like, and not having to surf through dozens of channels and hundreds of shows which we don’t like in order to find something worth watching.

Why is this? The general consensus seems to be that once you know that something is recorded, there for you to watch whenever it’s convenient, the urgency associated with watching it as it airs or not not being able to watch it at all disappears. And once that urge disappears, suddenly “when it’s convenient” gets bumped further and further down towards the back of…

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