The Touchscreen TV

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The other day I was hanging out with my 2 year old Crash Kid. While I was sitting there with him, he looked up at the TV to realize that Curious George had been paused. Turns out we were streaming Curious George from Netflix through our Google Chromecast(Side Note: I love the Chromecast!) on to our TV. If you’ve been watching a number of episodes on Netflix (which we’ve been known to do), then Netflix wants to make sure you’re still watching the show and not just letting it run forever with no one watching (which the Crash Kids are known to do).

Long story short, Curious George was paused by Netflix and required you to acknowledge that you were still watching. My two year old saw it and wanted “George!” (that’s what he calls it, and yes he says it with an exclamation point every time) to start playing again. So, he went up to the TV and tried clicking the button on the TV screen that said that it was paused.

Yes, this is a really long story to tell you that my 2 year old thought our TV was touchscreen. He’s literally being raised to think that everything can be touched and will react to touch. That’s really fascinating to consider. Especially since it’s currently pretty far from reality, but it will be very close to reality in his lifetime. The efforts that large companies are putting in to make every surface touchable is extraordinary and is going to happen.

Soon, I’ll be the old man who can’t adapt to technology. However, I feel pretty good that the crash kids will be well prepared for this tech enabled world.