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If you have a TiVo (or any other PVR/DVR) you’ve probably already gone through what I like to call “4 Stages of TiVo-Life integration.” Let me explain…


4 Stages of TiVo-Life Integration


Stage 1: Pause/Rewind/Fast-forward EVERYTHING!
In this stage, the patient finds themselves so addicted to the pause, rewind and fast-forward (including skip/jump/replay functionality) that they want those features to be available everywhere.

Common signs of this stage include patients using sounds like “da-doop, da-doop, da-doop” around you in a progressively higher pitched way to denote that they want you to go faster with the story you are telling them, or in a progressively lower pitched tone to go back.

Patients in this stage reporting wanting this functionality on the radio, phone conversations, meetings and any other type of verbal communication. A desire to have Pause/RW/FF functionality on their spouse is highly common.


Stage 2: Don’t know / Don’t care what time (and sometimes date/day) stuff is on
The following conversation is common to persons who suffer from Stage 2 TiVo-life integration.

Person A: “… that sounds like a great show, what time is it on?”
Stage 2′er: “I don’t have a clue. It just appears on my TiVo … like … Wednesday-ish? Maybe?”

Patients in this stage begin to show signs of decreased awareness of scheduled events, such as meetings or dinner. They wonder why they have to do things in an order someone else chose, and why the must occur at a specific time.

Stage 2 patients are frequently found without calendars and occasionally without watches. They are often late for any scheduled event but don’t realize it.


Stage 3: How did I live w/o this?!
Stage 3 of TiVo-life integration comes on rapidly and without any warning. Patients in this stage report feelings of enlightenment, reflection and overall pensiveness that is brought about by the realization that at one point in their life, they did not have a TiVo.

This realization causes the patient to have frequent impulses to express to others their feelings of wonderment about having TiVo in their lives. Often, persons around the patient feel peer pressure, a sense of feeling inadequate and having tech-envy.

In some studies, this stage was so strong that it caused the patient to volunteer time with the elderly as an opportunity to swap out the VCR they just learned how to program for a TiVo which confuses and frightens most older people.

Stage 3 is often a brief stage and considered an early warning sign of Stage 4.


Stage 4: Addiction
In this stage, the patient turns to excessive TiVo behavior. Signs include:

• Recording shows they have no intention to watch.
• Turning off recommendations to free up disk space (presumably for the items above).
• Acquiring additional TiVo units.
• Using the term “TiVo” to refer to all DVR’s… even though most aren’t TiVo.
• Wanting to take TiVo content with them… everywhere.
• A “need” to brag to friends about how many tuners they have in their home.

Learning hacks and mods to TiVo (such as 30-second skip) simply to have additional TiVo functionality which produces the same “high” they felt when they first started using TiVo.

In some extreme cases, Stage 4 produced a compulsive behavior resulting in the patient having a desire to build their own TiVo-like unit from scratch using computer components. In nearly all cases, the patient was not able to complete their “do-it-yourself” project or quickly went back to their original DVR.



If you, or someone you love, exhibits signs of TiVo-Life integration, you should seek the help of a trained physician immediately… or buy one yourself and at least go through it with them.
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