Is there a schism about the size of our entertainment screens?
We are not only talking about those large, 6,000-square-foot, colored beams of light attacking public places like New York
City's Time Square and Port Authority bus terminal, or the almost 100-yard- long worth of video screens in the Dallas football stadium, but about the littlest screens on our
smartphones.
But wait, there are more. The iPad tablet made it acceptable to want something slightly bigger than those tiny phone screens. This was followed by Amazon, Barnes & Noble and
other manufacturers going slightly smaller than that with so-called mini-tablets.
Some
might say we can't get it right. Others would say variety is the spice of our TV lives. New living room screens are averaging around 55 inches, with no doubt, many people thinking about 65 inches, 75
inches, and beyond.
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New York residents have been complaining about the 6,000-square-foot screen on the side of the Port Authority bus terminal. They say the screen is causing them to forgo
sleep, thinking, and perhaps even watching TV in their homes.
To prevent car accidents, digital outdoor purveyors have refrained from putting moving video on billboards alongside
roads in big cities. That's not only a distraction from driving, but from texting as well!
Fractionalization of media means one thing to some people: doing everything bigger, louder, and with
more impact to get people's attention. Freedom of speech might be the marketers’ rallying cry.
Consider some boundaries of personal space. Are those big mega light-producing
screens that bombard citizens through living room windows in tight apartment urban dwellings what marketers really want?
Bigger screens in large public, tourist-attraction spaces -- like Times
Square or Disneyland -- might be welcomed, just like bigger screens are in the home. Anywhere else seems like an intrusion.
Smaller screens? That's only an intrusion from other stuff you need
to be doing, like paying attention to those standing right next to you.
Content providers say they need to be on all screens. But sometimes it feels like they’re copping out by
not deciding where they really want their content
Their preference is surely to be on the screen that brings in the most money. But they'll also take dollars, dimes and pennies on all
those other screens – whether “passive” video for single viewers on smartphones and tablets, to aggressive videos that bombard masses of people via giant outdoor displays.