Changing media habits

[tzijlstra]

This thread invites you to talk about how your media habits are changing, just to be able to compare how we all perceive things, I'll kick off.

 

Hardware

 

Yesterday we finally got fibre-broadband installed at home. It was long overdue as I am a HEAVY internet-user and as soon as I was, for example, watching a movie online my wife couldn't check her e-mail, which rightly annoyed her.

 

We (A two person household) have a Youview box, a Chromecast, a Tablet, a smartTV, two active laptops (plenty old ones that are dormant), my PC has three screens with one usually showing some sort of stream and my wife has an HD-screen all-in-one on which she regularly watches iPlayer and the like. We haven't got a smartphone (no need) but that might be next.

 

Telly and radio

 

Whilst chatting we realised that actually we didn't use the big telly in the living room for anything other than watching the news, DVD boxsets and streams. whilst the little tellies in the kitchen and bedroom provide easy access to the news in the morning and something to do whilst chopping vegetables around dinner-time. I have a DAB radio on my desk that I mainly used to spare bandwidth, but it is convenient and I'll keep on using it, and one in the kitchen that is mainly used when cleaning/doing dishes etc if the telly isn't on. These days I mainly use Youtube and Spotify for my music needs, even my wife is now beginning to use Youtube in that way. I am very seriously considering not replacing the big telly and simply set up a network with high definition computer screens that can be controlled via a tablet throughout the house instead.

 

Paper issues

 

What's more: We used to have about ten subscriptions to numerous magazines and journals, from professional to entertainment, that is now reduced to the stuff we get from our respective professional organisations, two professional journals and a subscription to PC-Pro and the free junk-mail like stuff that we can't stop. We hardly ever read any of it anymore. We did away with the newspaper when we moved to the UK in 2007. With the tablet we now have digital access to the same material wherever we want it anyway.

 

Phone landline

 

I have never been a big phone-user, but we also realised that both of us use the landline a lot less than we used to. In the past we'd have 20-30 hours usage per month at least, it is now more like 5 to 8 and if my wife didn't ring her sister-in-law so often to natter about stuff, it'd be under 1 hour a month. This has been replaced with part mobile-phone (my wife has a nice 10£ nokia) and mainly through Facebook when it comes to family updates etc. On top of that we use Skype quite frequently which makes sense as my family is in the Netherlands.

 

So - pretty clear that my media habits have changed completely, how about yours?

[watchcoll]

I listen to DAB radio, one in the bedroom for the morning news/brekkie show & one in the kitchen for some background noise as I live alone.

I use my iPhone daily for quickly browsing the web, as an iPod connected to my cars Bluetooth and as my main phone, I only give the land line number when I have no intention of ever answering!

I have standard broadband as I'm not a big internet user. I have an oldish dell laptop in my study that I use for work related stuff & photoshop etc. A Hudl tesco tablet that I use for BBC iPlayer etc to watch in bed & to surf the web when I'm bored. I'm not a massive technology geek so not bothered about paying top whack for an iPad when I don't use it for much.

I hardly watch the telly, so it's a 3yr old 32 inch standard flat screen jobby with a DVD player built in & freesat. I have only one telly in the lounge.

I still listen to my CD's on a not very advanced CD/radio (not DAB) in the lounge.

I have a iPhone speaker dock in the study to listen to radio station apps/iTunes when I'm working.

I have never read papers regularly. I get a free mag from the ramblers association & I browse BBC news on the phone.

Since I got an iPod (& an iPhone a couple of years later) I now tend to purchase songs rather than albums. If I'm out walking I use the iPod to save the phone battery.

& I rarely fire up the laptop for internet banking. It's all done on the iPhone app or the hudl browser.

I communicate by email a lot more as it pushes instantly to my phone.

Think that's it

Edited October 2, 2014 by watchcoll

[tzijlstra]

Thanks watchcoll! Interesting that despite not being a tech-head you still clearly changed habits!

[Guest]

Well....I only have a 1 TV in the living room, although this is with a full 5.0 setup (no sub, the neighbours wouldn't be happy) which is used for everything. The amp also has zone 2 functionality which the PC uses.

 

I very rarely watch live TV, I record stuff on my Humax and generally watch recorded stuff or stream stuff to my BR player. I used to have a TV in the bedroom but that went ages ago as it was just used for watching the news in the morning whilst getting ready to go to work.

 

Music is streamed to my Squeezebox, I buy CDs when possible and rip them, otherwise it's lossless downloads failing that lossy ones. I couldn't cope without music, I listen to it everywhere so my lovely little Sansa Clip+ is ideal, my IEMs are rather expensive, but I like music so I'm not going to use some cheap, ****e earbuds.

 

Reading...not a big reader but since I bought a tablet I read a lot more. I use the Kindle app mostly.

 

Phone, had smartphones going right back to an iPhone 3G, not had an iPhone since but smartphones are just so damned useful.

 

I just stream more, I can't say my media habits have changed much over the past 5 years really.