Network Established / Side A

When television was introduced in Senegal in 1965, my grandparents were teenagers. Today, more than 8 out of 10 people living in Dakar, Senegal's most populated region, watch TV daily for about 4 hours a day. Television programming is synchronous - in today's conception of content consumption, this is limiting. Yet synchronicity enables communion when many people relate in real-time to the same content. Whereas on-demand content promotes solo binge culture, synchronous content creates boundaries around how much and when content is consumed. It also creates a sense of shared experience, where many viewers come as one. Nothing exemplifies this better than watching a football match in a crowded bar where you can hear a pin drop during penalties. As digital technologies gain prominence over their analogue predecessors, how do we retain some of the design and cultural principles that shaped technologies like TV - those that promote living and engaging better as a society?