One piece of residual media that my family has completely abandoned is cable TV. Recently a few months ago my dad switched from using DirecTV to completely relying on antenna TV. Though it seems like we were reverting back to a an almost obsolete media, what made us switch was the emergent media of Netflix and other online streaming sources.

Because I have Netlflix, Amazon Prime, Youtube, and other online streaming sources I have an infinite library of movies and TV shows at my finger tips, available to me whenever I need them. It allows me the ability to watch shows on my own schedule instead of keeping up with shows weekly, anxiously waiting for the new episode to come out. Instead I can just wait for a season to come out on Netflix or possibly find the new episode somewhere else online. It also saves me money because I can also just wait for movies to come out online too.

With DirecTV there were over 300 channels we could watch, but barely watched half of them. I only ever watched cable TV for all the cooking shows I never actually learned from to kill time after school or kept it on as background noise for other activities I would be doing around the house. My parents only ever watched local news channels or sports games, and the antenna is still able to provide that same entertainment, just limiting what games my dad can watch.

It is ironic how an emergent media allowed for a residual media to come back; however, because my parents are more old school and do not comply to newer technologies, I am the only one that uses the internet as my new source of TV entertainment.