Definition of a Screensumer

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If you think plastic money has only impacted the way we shop, then you are totally wrong. The plastic money or the credit card has impacted how we buy, how we shop, how we do business, how we sell stuff, how we manage our finances and all the other important stuff which you can’t even measure or analyse - stuff like culture, society and humanity. In a same way our screen consumption has led to many things we had never thought (at least I had never thought). I am sure many people must have discussed this is the past, researched it , researching it or thinking about the future - but I was not able to find out the word for this phenomenon and that’s why for my own comfort, I coined a new one - screensumer.

What is a Screen ?

There is no definition for a screen, the very first screen known to humanity is his own shadow or the reflection in the waters. The first man made screen must be definitely the mirror. Mirror according to me is the most high-fidelity non-electronic display system that man has invented so far. But Mirror has a problem you cannot store image on the Mirror in any way. And transmitting images through Mirror is still a pain. Fibre optics is of course a system of transmitting information through mirror but requires lot of electronics - to capture, transmit and project the image.

As we progressed we experimented with different Screen system -

Symbolic and textual images can be created using series of bulbs or LEDs.

Magically Movie Screen, the biggest screen in the history was invented before the small one - television . But you had to go to Movies, it was available to you but not on a daily basis. Movies almost had the same impact which Television created later. Television is the evolution of a movie screen in all the possible permutation and combinations - technology, production, delivery, entertainment, culture, society, news and many many other things.

The biggest invention in retail space (in your home) so far has been Television which was backed by the entire system of recording, storing and transmitting, projecting and display. Television itself has evolved as a device from CRT to LCD to Plasma and to Touch based going forward. The standards, electronics and capacity of this medium is evolving day by day. The biggest invention is actually the web, but again the computer monitor that we use is just a modified Television to support near distance viewing.

What is Screen Consumption and who is Screensumer ?

Definition of a screensumer is simple - "a person who consumes screen". Am I stupid or what ? Screen consumption ? Screen is a delivery medium not an information, entertainment, product or service which you can consume. But do we really know in our life what we consume ? Remember that song by Bruce Springsteen 57 channels and nothing on. I think it was the first artistic mention of Screensumerism.  Have you ever experienced this ?

" You are in your office, suddenly all the Air-conditioners have been shut, lights are still on and there is no problem with the electricity. Suddenly you experience such a deep and spooky silence, you really realize now that Air conditioners are actually so noisy but you never realized the sound when it was working for you, you realized it when the sound was missing. In short, you were till now consuming noise. And hence that is why I say that we don’t even know most of the times what we are consuming."

When we are browsing channels on TV and end up spending 2-3 hours in front of it without actually watching any program, liking any stuff or remembering any of the stuff post consumption - at such times we are consuming screen, the television and not the channels. The same goes for Mobile, Web and any other Screen based medium.

The screensumerism is getting hard coded into your lifestyle - you are in front of a screen throughout the day 8,10,12,14 and much more crazy hours. You are so stuck to this screen that even besides your work, if you get any time you end up spending it on the screen. You eyes are already burning and they are exhausted, but still when you come back home, the first thing that you do is - switch on the TV. Some people like me, have gone beyond this and have taken their laptops to their beds and late night reading has transformed to late night browsing. You don’t even know or realize that, at this odd hours you don’t have any mails to catch up with, there is no mission critical stuff, but still you end up with a screen. And last but not the least set your alarm on a mobile (your last screen of the day) and waking up to it in the morning (your first screen of the day)

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