The Evils of Television
I've been completely television free for over six months. Before that, I had cable television for about a year, but rarely used it as I was a crazy dual degree theatre student and didn't have the time to waste keeping up with a weekly show. When I did turn the damn thing on, I tended to watch movies or Discovery Channel specials rather than episodic programming, and I was almost always doing something else (like homework) at the same time. So over the last 18 mos, for all intents and purposes I haven't been watching tv.
After being home with my parents for two days, I've spent a total of almost 10 hours watching television. While part of that was watching The Dirty Dozen and another was watching When Harry Met Sally, still, I swear that damn thing is addictive. What is it about the television that draws one's attention? Other than the obvious: noise, light, and bright colors. I mean, shouldn't one of my two higher levels of consciousness be able to put its foot down and say, "ok, we know it's bright and shiny, but that doesn't make it worth watching!"
It doesn't help that everyone in my family is hopelessly addicted. My mother leaves the tv on when she goes to sleep at night. She says she does it to drown out the sound of my dad's machine (he wears a mask that keeps air blowing into his nose all night to combat his sleep apnia), but it would drive me crazy to have it on all night. My brother does the same thing, although not usually on purpose. He just falls asleep and wakes up with it still on.
I know I have my own addictions- the internet, for one, but I have spent days/weeks away from the computer and been just fine without it. The cable went out here for a week once and they almost killed each other. If my brother didn't have a backlog of television series on DVD to watch, he probably would have gone over the edge and murdered my parents.
It's absolute craziness, and the worse part came when I was sitting with my parents watching Friday night shows. I caught myself thinking, "that looks like an interesting show, too bad I'll have to miss it," and briefly considered purchasing cable tv again. I think I'm over it now, but that was a scary moment. Besides, I have too many movies to watch and video games to play and books to read (and write!) to waste my time with that stuff. If it's really worth watching I'll wait for it to come out on DVD and my brother will lend it to me. Then I'll get to see special features and not be inundated with commercials.
Because, as well all know, no matter how awful the quality of the programming, the commercials are far, far worse.
After being home with my parents for two days, I've spent a total of almost 10 hours watching television. While part of that was watching The Dirty Dozen and another was watching When Harry Met Sally, still, I swear that damn thing is addictive. What is it about the television that draws one's attention? Other than the obvious: noise, light, and bright colors. I mean, shouldn't one of my two higher levels of consciousness be able to put its foot down and say, "ok, we know it's bright and shiny, but that doesn't make it worth watching!"
It doesn't help that everyone in my family is hopelessly addicted. My mother leaves the tv on when she goes to sleep at night. She says she does it to drown out the sound of my dad's machine (he wears a mask that keeps air blowing into his nose all night to combat his sleep apnia), but it would drive me crazy to have it on all night. My brother does the same thing, although not usually on purpose. He just falls asleep and wakes up with it still on.
I know I have my own addictions- the internet, for one, but I have spent days/weeks away from the computer and been just fine without it. The cable went out here for a week once and they almost killed each other. If my brother didn't have a backlog of television series on DVD to watch, he probably would have gone over the edge and murdered my parents.
It's absolute craziness, and the worse part came when I was sitting with my parents watching Friday night shows. I caught myself thinking, "that looks like an interesting show, too bad I'll have to miss it," and briefly considered purchasing cable tv again. I think I'm over it now, but that was a scary moment. Besides, I have too many movies to watch and video games to play and books to read (and write!) to waste my time with that stuff. If it's really worth watching I'll wait for it to come out on DVD and my brother will lend it to me. Then I'll get to see special features and not be inundated with commercials.
Because, as well all know, no matter how awful the quality of the programming, the commercials are far, far worse.
posted by Carrie at 12:20 PM
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