Patterns of Family Life and Television Consumption from 1945 to the 1990s

Since the 1940s, family structure and function have probably undergone more profound and rapid revisions than during all the remainder of American history. Family values, lifestyles, use of discretionary time, and reliance on technological sophistication have all been affected, in some cases transformed, by the events of the last half century. And television as a medium has developed both technically and programatically during the same period. Thus, all the variables in the “family’s-use-of-television” dynamic have changed individually and in relation to one another.