Channel surfing simply means sitting back in front of the
television and flipping channels every few seconds, trying to find something
good to
watch. It is more effective on
cable systems with a smaller
number of channels;
modern systems with hundreds of channels can take forever to surf through; the
signal to noise ratio tends to be reduced.
Another problem plauging channel surfers lately is digital cable boxes and satellite receivers. These units generally take 2-3 seconds to tune in a channel, which greatly slows channel surfing, turning it into a laborious affair. Of course, the built in channel guide in such systems helps find stuff to watch, but will never substitute for real channel surfing.