Many Americans do not know what a television antenna

That generation has grown up people who do not know that television can be watched for free. The Wall Street Journal published a wonderful article on how young Americans discover a television antenna. This magic device does an incredible thing - it removes free TV channels from the air ! WSJ writes that the new generation did not know life before cable television. Young citizens watch mainly Netflix, Hulu and HBO over the Internet.



And the point is not that the Americans are special. Look at the kids and teens around you. Many of them, too, have never seen a TV aerial, do not know what it is, why, and how it works. Maybe the most intelligent and guess by comparing it with a radio antenna. If they saw the radio, of course.



Yes, remember yourself, when was the last time you watched TV on such an antenna?



WSJ provides comments from people who produce and sell such antennas for $ 20-25. Their business is going great. People will find out that you can opt out of a $ 100 cable subscription and watch the channels for free! At first, few believe it. Many ask if it is legal. Some people think that this is some kind of new satellite service or something like that ...



For example, one of these vendors, 21-year-old Carlos Villalobos (of course, there are advanced guys among young people), says that he goes to extremes. Earlier this year, he received a scolding from a woman who also asked what kind of device it was and what it was for. The seller explained that this is a $ 20 antenna for watching television completely free of charge: “She lost her temper,” Carlos recalls. “She said:“ No, you cannot live in America for free, what are you talking about? ””.



It should be noted that the reaction of women is quite reasonable. In America, this situation is really. If you did not know this before, you would never have believed that the largest commercial television stations would allow them to watch them for free.



According to statistics from the National Association of Broadcasters of the USA (NAB), almost every third American does not know that local television can be watched for free. But in the normal broadcast on free broadcasting are also nationwide network ABC, NBC, Fox and CBS. In 2009, it was decided to fully switch to digital broadcasting (Congress allocated $ 2 billion to help old people buy converters), and free channels remain on the radio, only in digital format.



In fact, there is nothing strange in not knowing about the technologies that were in the past and how to use them, so in this respect the current younger generation is no different from previous ones. Well, children do not know that the news can be read in the newspaper - so what? We, too, do not know how to harness a horse. People are not born with a wired program of this knowledge - all knowledge is acquired with experience. We adapt to the surrounding reality and learn the skills that are needed to adapt to this reality.



Someone lives to be 20 years old and does not know how to use a washing machine. Someone does not know how to make paper airplanes, and someone does not know how to whistle with his hands. A person will not know even the simplest things until he is shown. The baggage of practical knowledge is gradually accumulated by mankind and is passed on from generation to generation, and some knowledge can be irretrievably lost on the way. (Of course, there is Wikipedia, where if you follow the links, in a couple of hours you will learn not only about things that you did not know about, but also about things that you didn’t want to know about).



On Slashdot and Reddit, they tell funny stories about teenagers who don’t know the simplest things - like dropping a glass in a car with a crank (they have never been in a car without power windows). Well, what to do, life goes on, the progress of civilization is evident.



Oddly enough, but now the usual portable teleantennas are getting a new life in America. According to the forecast of the Consumer Technology Association, in 2017, their sales in the US will grow by 7% and amount to almost 8 million units. For example, the company Antennas Direct only in June sold 75 thousand antennas. It seems that Americans are discovering something "new." Maybe watching TV on TV cameras will even become fashionable, like listening to vinyl records. They say that such an antenna gives a softer and more soulful image than a soulless “figure”.