Douglas Coupland’s new Financial Times article concerns his relationship to television, a glowing box which has changed markedly during his life–and not just architecturally. Of particular interest is how the obsolescence of TV in the Internet Age has led to the medium’s creative apex. The opening:

“On April 19 1995, I bought my first genuine adult TV set – a 27in Sony Trinitron. I know it was this date because two delivery men brought it to the house at about 11 in the morning. We installed the TV into a nook in the bookshelves, turned it on, and on screen came images of the Oklahoma City bombing. For the three of us it was an ‘I remember where I was’ moment. We stopped for an hour and watched the news. I made coffee, we talked a bit and then the day progressed.

I used to watch TV back then. By that I mean I’d go into the living room and turn on the TV set, saying, ‘Gosh. I wonder what’s on TV right now? I think I’ll run through the channels.’ It’s hard to imagine anyone in 2014 doing this, even my parents. Over two decades, our collective TV viewing habits have changed so much that it’s actually quite hard to remember old-style TV viewing.

I remember 1997 and Princess Diana’s death and being glued to CNN for hours. The same for 9/11. But when Michael Jackson died in 2009, I was in my dining room writing when a friend texted to tell me. Instead of turning on CNN, I went right to the internet and it was only hours later that I thought, ‘Hmmm . . . I wonder how TV is covering this.’ A shift had occurred.”