All of us, we're the TV generation. What does this mean in relation to Jane Austen? It means the advent of TV changed the novel. TV works in a 30 to 60 minute segment, less if you figure in commercials. They have a very short time to tell a story. The effect of this type of story telling on literature was to make books start faster. In Austen's time, books spent a lot more time with setting, background and tone, so books in that time period build slowly with details being filled in all along the way. Reading the first two paragraphs of a novel written 150-200 years ago tells you nothing about the story.