Advances in technology have also contributed to the phenomenon of generalization. The introduction of colour television sets is one of the first examples of this. The transition from to black and white to colour caused people to see the images on their television set as more “real”. TV became more of a window to the outside, and less impersonal and visually dreary. All further improvements to picture and colour quality added to this effect.

Perhaps the most important technological advance with respect to the way we watch television is the remote control. The remote control completely altered the activity of watching television. With it, one can change channels easily and comfortably because this can be done from anywhere in the room. The remote control provides an incentive for the viewer to change the channel when the content becomes uninteresting. A good example of this is during commercial breaks. The remote control allows people to navigate around advertisements and catch snippets of other programs. This increased control is an important aspect of generalization.

The remote control has spawned a new way of watching television called channel surfing. This initially involves cycling through all of the channels until something worth watching is found. In many cases though, the activity of cycling through the channels itself becomes something worth watching. This technique of watching television, combined with a large number of cable speciality channels, creates a TV set that takes the catalogued contents of its various channels and generalizes them. With the remote control, the viewer is no longer boxed into a single topic or genre; they are exposed to the entire spectrum of the cable universe. To a channel surfer, a greater number of specialized channels means a wider range of input as she navigates the medium.