How did people watch 7" sets?

I dunno.....Dragnet didn't go on TV until 1952. By then screen sizes had increased.

Definitely in the late 40's the most common shows were stage based variety ones, i.e. Milton Berle. They didn't seem to use close ups much.

I think a good point was made about people being used to radio. I'll bet they listened to the TV as much as watched it back then.

A lot of those small sets were sold with stands. I'll bet most people used them like shown in the photo. It was just moved into the middle of the living room when used. At that time, TV was only on in the evenings, so it would be moved out of the way during the day. People didn't consider them a piece of furniture yet, or plan their living rooms around them like they did when larger screen sets came out.