This is my second time around with this song. It’s like asking people to stop smoking crack. But smoking crack is demonstrably bad for your physical and mental health, while watching tv is merely an enjoyable pastime. What’s my problem?
Sure, I feel left out sometimes when I can’t quote lines from the latest episode of the latest fantasy about clashing barbarians or fictional politics. Perhaps I betray my curmudgeon tendencies, because I didn’t even have tv until I was seven years old (and then it was Howdy Doody and Hopalong Cassidy). Perhaps I’m just a wee bit resentful that Cable—where all the “good” programs reside–costs a lot of money.
Nevertheless, we don’t subscribe to cable. We don’t watch tv. We don’t know what’s going on out there in the land of pharmaceutical ads, reality shows, Fox News, and seriously important sporting events. Well, yes, we do get Ohio State football from time to time on the regular feed through the antenna. I mean, what’s really important?? But the Super Bowl happens without a party at our house.
I try not to talk about this a lot. It smacks of judgment and self-righteousness. Guilty! Also, perhaps it is just a teeny bit hypocritical: we get our share of stories from online news subscriptions, Netflix, amazon prime, and (me) Facebook feeds. Are these screen sources easier to control than sustaining resistance to the siren song of the DVR? I don’t know, as I have never figured out how to do DVR. What am I? Luddite. Troglodyte. (I’m proud of you if you know what these labels mean.)
During the recent political season, we hear about the bazillions of dollars poured into campaigns by “special interests.” What did most of those dollars buy? TV time. People’s brains on crack. No use complaining about the purchase of office holders and their legislative votes, when it is the blurts of tv advertising that captivate and hornswoggle the voters at home.
STOP. WATCHING. TV.
Take control of your time, your brain, your home. Let advertisers of all kinds waste their money, not yours.
TV is crack. But you can kick it. Yes, you can.
Hey Barb… totally agree with you. We have neither cable nor satellite and in fact, if I want to catch a little Jeopardy! I have to hike down the road to my parents’ house. For most of my life there was a tv in the house I lived in but once we lived for so long overseas where we couldn’t actually understand what was on television, we found blissfully more time for a million other things, including playing games and gasp, talking to one another. We get our news from NPR and BBC Radio and that includes news about the rest of the world, something sorely lacking in most of the programs on tv, radio, or elsewhere that are found these days. Much of current television (not all) is simply 1) a vehicle for selling you crap you don’t need, and 2) triggering your amygdala to stress levels – causing the brain to produce adrenalin and cortisol and other inflammatory agents that surge into the body and can, over time cause some pretty dramatic physical manifestations (auto-immune diseases are a big one). So yes, while watching Jacques Pepin and his granddaughter cook on public television cooking, or Henry Louis Gates on “Finding Your Roots” will not damage your executive function, in general, the lowest common denominator that drives tv these days is harmful to our health at a number of levels. Keep preachin’ sister!