It’s been a bit since I’ve read Amusing Ourselves to Death but I believe in the book the phrase ”Now this” is used disparagingly to refer to the fact that with tv you can go from a horrific news story like a local family being murdered to a completely unrelated story, both in content and emotion in the span of seconds. This doesn’t allow ample time for the viewer to process the former and essentially forces them to turn their brain off as the cognitive dissonance of holding both stories (and more) simultaneously would be impossible.

That's fair. It does seem pretty similar to just reading a newspaper and moving your eyes to the next story, but I get that TV is a lot more stimulating and you can't go at your own pace like you can with the paper.