Entertainment stopped having an ending.

When I was a kid, video games had three lives.

You died three times? Game over. And I mean game over. Back to the beginning.

After going through that routine a few times, eventually you got bored, shut it off, went outside, knocked on a friend’s door, grabbed your bike, found a basketball, or figured out something else to do.

TV had an ending too.

Most Gen Xers grew up with at least part of their childhood without cable. Even when cable became common, there was no on-demand anything. You watched whatever happened to be on at that moment—and honestly, we didn’t care about 80% of it.

There was enough entertainment to enjoy it, but not enough to consume every waking hour.

Today, we’ve essentially eliminated the stopping points.

Video games can go on forever. You can always play another round, level up something else, unlock something else, or start another match.

Then we created the infinite scroll.

TikTok, Reels, Shorts, YouTube—there is no final video. The algorithm will happily keep handing you another one. And another one. And another one.

And as if an unlimited amount of content wasn’t enough, we made it portable.

Remember when a family had one TV?

You had to share it. If Dad was watching something, you weren’t. If your brother or sister got their turn, you waited. And when you did watch something together, it was actually a shared experience.

Even video games were often social. Your friends were sitting beside you on the floor waiting for their turn with the controller.

Now we carry a television in our pocket that works almost anywhere in the world, with essentially unlimited content available 24 hours a day.

And because it’s a personal device, much of that entertainment is consumed completely alone.

But there’s another difference I think matters:

We removed the pauses.

A commercial used to come on. A show ended. You lost your last life. Your friend wanted the controller. Something interrupted the entertainment and gave your brain a chance to disengage.

Now the next video starts immediately. Then the next one. Then the next one.

Many games are live and continuous. Walking away means leaving your teammates or losing your progress. Videos are served in an uninterrupted stream, often without even a commercial break forcing you to look away.

There’s always something pulling you into the next few minutes.

And when there’s never a natural pause, it becomes incredibly easy for a few minutes to become an hour—or several hours—without ever stopping long enough to think:

Is there something more important I should be doing right now?

Homework. Chores. Exercise. Work. Sleep. Talking to your family. Going outside. Spending time with actual people.

Think about the progression.

We went from limited entertainment that was often shared and naturally interrupted to unlimited entertainment that is portable, personal, continuous, and increasingly consumed in isolation.

No final level. No end of programming. No need to share the television. No reason to wait until you get home. No commercial break. No reason to even be bored.

And there’s never a moment when the screen says:

That’s it. Go do something else.

I think we’ve underestimated what losing those natural stopping points—and those shared experiences—has done to us, especially to kids.

Maybe three lives, one television, a handful of channels, commercial breaks, and having to wait your turn weren’t such bad things after all.

Sometimes boredom was exactly what pushed us out the door and into real life.