December 17, 2005
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Overheard just now at the Nelsons' lunch table:
Kathryn [reading statistics aloud from The Week]: "It says here that two out of three American kids have TVs in their bedrooms."
Armando: "TVs? What are those?"yessssss. A parental victory. I kept my mouth shut and trotted right up here to share my joy with you.
For the record, all my children do know what televisions are. We see them in restaurants, shopping malls, theme parks, sports bars, clothing stores, and other people's homes. I have explained to them how a TV works. None of them are very interested in having one, though.
What's the point, when they have a computer with a DVD player and broadband internet access?
(but, not in their bedroom...)
Comments (5)
very nice! victory indeed!
Yay you guys!
I was not permitted to watch TV growing up. I am one person who can honestly say I never watch it. I know my mind is more imaginative and active as a result of not watching it. I cannot understand why people DO watch it.
Gosh, you guys are wonderful.
I agree, Sally, though I came at it from a different direction: I think I watched a good deal too much TV when I was a kid. But a good deal less than some of my peers, and than many kids today. But as an older teen I already knew that TV was bad for me-- not necessarily what was on TV, just the act of watching it. It messed with my ability to focus, even on fun things (not to mention drudgery like homework).
As an adult, I was diagnosed with an aurovestibular disorder that causes many of the symptoms of ADD. One thing the doctor cautioned me about was TV-watching! It makes my aurovestibular input-filtering function adapt to a much higher rate of change and stimulus than I get in the real world, and I can't easily or quickly make the shift back. (Just ask my wife!)
Besides that, I think television is a huge waste of time. Cinema has much more "room" and time and budget to tell better visual narratives, if that's what I want; radio and print news are vastly better (more info, higher quality info, and in less time, as I'm a fast reader or listen to the news while I drive: "Give us 22 minutes, we'll give you the world" as they say). Worst of all, the ceaseless insidious commercials brainwash you into a Malthusian/occultic worldview, focusing you on what you lack, creating desire out of disinterest and "need" out of desire... I could go on and on. No way am I poisoning my kids minds with that. Took me years to recover from it myself.
That's one thing that was part of the "tipping point" to convince me to buy and represent Xtracycle-- seeing one of their little stickers that said "Xtracycle: the bike that hauls... your TV to the dump."
That said, I think television does not of necessity dull the imagination or mental activity. In people without my sort of ADD, those who can filter out the garbage better and shift from one stimuli-level to another seamlessly, I think television/movies/other visual media simply develop the mind differently. I admit I am very word-centered, book-centered, print-centered. (hence the blog and the nascent writing career) Many other postmoderns are instead image-centered, visual-thinkers. This is not necessarily better or worse, just different, and I want to understand them.
Anyone like that want to comment?
I think TV is great providing I'm the one in control of my life and not it. I tend to be very picky about what I choose to watch too. Rachel finds TV helpful when she needs to just switch off, but I would choose a book 9 times out of 10. I hate adverts though, which is why I'm glad we still have the BBC here which doesn't have any. It's cool that your kids lives don't revolve around the TV.
No kidding! BBC television has no adverts (or "commercials" for my paisanos in America)?! That's great. Public television here has sold out to corporate pressure. Non-profits advertise on public television too. Even the "public service announcements" sound like commercials— "secondhand smoke kills", etc.
(er, at least they did several years ago when I last watched... has anything changed, those of you who watch PBS?)
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