The world of daytime t.v. looked a little less bright this week with the announcement of the cancellation of two of its longest-living stars: All My Children and One Life to Live.

Both shows-born in the era of the Vietnam War-were preceded in demise by several other soaps; the only survivor on ABC now being General Hospital.

So the big question is: Why now? How did two shows that lasted for more than 40 years each get canceled in 2011?

Times certainly have changed. The television landscape is no longer populated by sitcoms, dramas and game shows. Reality t.v. is still where it’s at. From Survivor and American Idol to The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills and Dancing with the Stars, television viewers routinely flock to shows grounded in some sort of veracity. Even if the ‘plots’ may be manufactured or nudged in a certain direction at times, it is clear that viewers enjoy watching someone else’s reality unfold before their eyes. It is interesting that the two shows scheduled to replace AMC and OLTL are reality-based: a food show hosted by Mario Batali and a makeover show hosted by Project Runway’s Tim Gunn.

This craving for reality also has extended to-and formed a relationship with-social media. With the advent of social networking, people have been spending more time online interacting with each other. When a television program airs, a natural extension of our viewing experience is to share our reactions by engaging in a conversation with others about it via social media (think of t.v. events trending on Twitter such as the Super Bowl, the Oscars, American Idol). Viewers want interaction-and whether it is with friends and family on Facebook, or chatting with other users via Twitter-if a live event is taking place on t.v., people will chat about it. It becomes news, and by engaging in a conversation about it, they are becoming part of the event itself. A scripted drama does not have that sense of newsworthiness. If people did tweet about the plotlines of the latest daytime episodes, they might not have been compelled to do so en masse; rarely has the storyline of a drama become a trending topic.

Although many reality shows are taped, they still offer that sense of suspense and immediacy: someone’s life might be changed by the drama. The events unfolding are really happening to someone. Perhaps the drama a reality show creates cannot be reproduced by a scripted drama? Bickering between hosts of The View have made headlines. Even the whereabouts and love lives of reality t.v. stars make the news. Unless you’re Susan Lucci, it’s hard to get that kind of press when you’re coming from daytime t.v.

It could be also that social media has stolen the attention of some of the soaps’ traditional viewers. When I was growing up, I remember my mom catching glimpses of As the World Turns and The Guiding Light between her daily chores. Now more and more moms log in to Facebook, check daily deals from their favorite brands on Twitter, or send text messages when they have a few extra minutes rather than turn on the t.v.

The skeptics have predicted that our love of reality t.v. will fade; however, it hasn’t yet, and I doubt that it will ever vanish completely, nor will our desire to interact with one another via social media. Then again, a similar opinion might have been held in the 1970s: that the soaps will never die. I guess never tweet never.