Changing Technology: Watching Your Television Shows Online

In the new, face-paced, go go go world where we don't have much free time to spend being couch potatoes, sites that offer on-line video and Internet television are definitely here to stay. As computers and the Internet take over more of life, there will be more things that people look for to be there and television is one of those things. We work long hours in front of our computers, we travel with it, a lot of life revolves around a computer now and when you're working, it's hard to stop working at a specific time in order to go watch television. TiVo and DVR's have made this easier for people by allowing them to record their chosen shows to watch on their schedule, but what if their schedule doesn't give them that time?

Sites like YouTube have brought to light the fact that people don't have the time to stop to watch a full show, they just want to see the meat of a show. They want to see the funniest clip or the most emotional or controversial part. Rarely do they want to sit through all the mundane parts of the show. In the day and age with reality shows taking over, the best parts are the eliminations at the end of the show. So people don't always want to sit through the other 45-50 minutes when they can find out the results in the last 5-10 minutes.

With the prominence of the Internet in our lives, there are so many options for people to watch television on the computer, especially with many of the major networks turning to putting their full length shows up on the web sites for viewing. Didn't get home from work on time to catch your favorite show? Head over to the television network's web site and see if it's available for free viewing. If not, check out iTunes, they may have it since they've broken into the market of selling television shows. If that fails or you don't want to see the whole show, head on over to YouTube and find clips from the shows.

It's not hard to find shows, legally, on the Internet and it gets easier every day. But the question remains, are sites like YouTube giving us real quality, real content, the whole picture. No, they aren't, really. If you watch the last 5 minutes, seeing one of your favorites being eliminated from your favorite show, are you going to understand why that happened? Not without watching the rest of the show or spending time that you could have spent watching the entire show looking for the information.

The problem is, in this fast paced world, people want to spend the least amount of time possible enjoying the things that they used to make time to enjoy. That fact alone tells us that sites like YouTube are here to stay, as long as they provide a quick fix for the television watchers who no longer make the time to sit down and watch.