Christine Rosen’s article “The Age of Egocasting” in the latest The New Atlantis provides needed insight on the impact of new technology (such as TiVo & iPod) on our desire to feel “in control” of the media that we experience. I agree with her summation:
From the remote control to TiVo and iPod, we have crafted technologies that are superbly capable of giving us what we want. Our pleasure at exercising control over what we hear, what we see, and what we read is not intrinsically dangerous. But an unwillingness to recognize the potential excesses of this power—egocasting, fetishization, a vast cultural impatience, and the triumph of individual choice over all critical standards—is perilous indeed.
MichaelZimmer.org 