Smash the TV Habit
Filed under: Vexed - April 13, 2007 @ 8:19 am
The most effective way to become smarter and gain control of your thoughts is to stop watching TV. TV influences you, controls your thoughts, steals your time away from better things. TV shoves mainstream media at you, leaving no room for original thought. I also think it’s akin to alcohol, drugs, and other self-medicating devices. SO many people endure a long, boring, shitty day at the office, then come home and cope by switching on the TV and zoning out for a few hours.
I think one of the biggest reasons why I manage to have so many opinions and experiences that don’t match up to societal norms is because I don’t watch TV. My brain is less corrupted. So turn off the TV and keep informed with news and events by reading the paper in print or online. Try getting your news from somewhere besides CNN, like BBC. Replace TV with human interaction, a new hobby, creating art, or reading. Read whatever you can get your hands on, but be warned that magazines can be a waste of time because they just recycle the same info over and over like goddamn reruns.
PS: People who don’t watch TV are hot. People who don’t OWN a TV are even HOTTER.
April 13th, 2007 at 8:47 am
Many years ago, Pete Hamill wrote a regular column for Esquire. In one, he put forth the opinion that the huge increase in heroin use, especially in poor urban areas, occured with the expansion of regular television viewing. He made many good points, comparing the demeanor of junkies nodding off with people exhibiting the same behaviors zoning out while viewing television. He also made the point that before television, most people did not have a false and idealized life to compare their own to, thus did not feel as deprived and angry about it.
The older I get, the less I’m attracted to any form of passive entertainment.
April 13th, 2007 at 8:57 am
Some years ago, our six year old threw a temper tantrum, kicked the TV stand and before anyone knew what was happening, knocked it over and smashed it to pieces. She was mortified. I told her that we all have bad moments but we need to control impluses like that. I also said I wasn’t mad at her, but that TV’s were expensive and so, if we wanted another one, we were going to have to figure out what to cut out of our budget to purchase one. I took out our budget (I am a geek, I track these things) and we went down the list. Surprise surprise, we couldn’t find anything we wanted to give up to have the TV again. After six months, she stopped asking because I would ask the same question, what should we give up to have TV? Now,at 10, when she visits friends houses, she thinks TV is dumb ….. I had to be 40 before I figured that out
April 13th, 2007 at 9:19 am
You are a GOOD daddy geek! xoxo
And your daughter sounds smart and fiery!
April 13th, 2007 at 9:28 am
What would you propose people do when they leave the office so tired that they can’t read without falling asleep and so tired their creative juices won’t flow? And don’t say masturbate! I know that’s your easy answer.
April 13th, 2007 at 9:58 am
As a teenager I swore off television, decrying it for the very same braindeath reasons you stated. I chose to read instead. This certainly shaped my worldview and boosted my creativity. It was very healthy, in retrospect.
Sometime around age 24/25 I came back to it via baseball addiction. These days are a golden age for serialized dramas, and I watch a bunch of shows on DVD or via pirate torrents.
I do get to skip the intelligence insulting advertisements this way, so there’s that. Bit I gotta stick up for TV a little bit, now that I have a cable subscription. (I need shitwit talking heads to hold my hand during election season. To feed my rage and indignation. Hello, dubious lazy cable news programs.)
April 13th, 2007 at 11:12 am
How Bohemian,
Now I know better than to ask your opinion of the sex scenes in HBO’s ROME.
April 13th, 2007 at 3:35 pm
I haven’t really watched TV shows religiously like I did in the 90s, but now I’ve been watching a lot more TV lately. Not anything on cable, but on video postcasting (which I can watch on the TV with the right device). Lots of great, independent stuff on there from individuals like you and me on many different topics…they’re just folks wanting to share their interests. One great podcast is “Alive in Baghdad,” produced by an independent person out there highlighting what’s really going on out there.
April 16th, 2007 at 2:53 am
I was briefly distracted by the entry “Snapshot…”
Ok…I agree strongly with this. I am ready to get rid of my TV. First the girlfriend. Otherwise it will be moot.
I was gonna ask you a question about Goedeker’s Superstore, you being a “local” and all. But if you never watch TV, I don’t know if you’d be able to answer:
So their slogan is “Give us a chance - every day but Sunday.” Then there’s a cheesy ad where the owner guy is explaining how he’s this big Christian and all that shit. He closes his store on the “Lord’s Day,” but he runs his stupid commercial instead. What’s up with that? As an atheist and an intelligent person, do you care to weigh in?
April 16th, 2007 at 7:18 am
I think as long as the owner guy doesn’t do any work on Sunday, he has no problem running his commercial on the Lord’s Day. In other words, he’s OK with folks relaxing in front of the TV after church and learning about how they can buy an even bigger screen TV from him some other day. He also gets to feel smug about being good to his employees by not making them work on Sunday, either. In a way, I actually admire him for standing up for something he feels strongly about at the cost of potentially losing business and money. (Another example of this is Carol House furniture. They made the decision to stop selling leather furniture because they felt it wasn’t right to profit from the skin of other animals.)
Interestingly, there are Orthodox Jews in New York who have online businesses, and they shut their websites down for Shabbat, so that they don’t conduct even virtual business on the Lord’s Day.
April 16th, 2007 at 9:59 am
Ah yes, my little one is smart, fiery, and a ham
She finds most parts of school boring. Thank (insert diety here) that she has the teacher she has this year. This teacher has, at no small time investment, guided her on a tour of books appropriate for her reading level (High school sophomore) and maturity level (some days an adult in a kids suit and some days a 10 year old who needs a fairy tail). Of course she takes after her big sister who is in college and doing well and her mom who has her own Physical Therapy Practice. I am surounded by brainy women …… and it’s a good thing 
April 16th, 2007 at 11:56 am
well, i do sometimes like to go home and crash and zone out in front of the tv. but i’m one of the rare few who won’t be brainswashed by the manufactured garbage they spit out. kind of like in “a prayer for owen meany” where the grandmother loved to watch tv just so she could criticize it all day.
April 17th, 2007 at 8:09 am
OK, first of all, there are some decent things on TV…BUFFY, for God’s sake. I can’t let go of my love of SciFi. Plus, have you ever watched this channel? http://www.freespeech.org/fscm2/genx.php?name=home
I also have to sing the praises of HGTV for homeowners. And who am I kidding, I also love New York. http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=120427742
Everything in moderation….well, we know you don’t subscribe to that, so nevermind!
April 20th, 2007 at 9:54 am
Should I respond, should I not, should I respond……. OK I got weak
I will agree with you that there is good TV. Don’t tell anyone but from time to time, I have watched the new version of Battlestar Galactica at a friend’s house. I am a big SciFi fan, travelling long distances to conventions and hosting SF authors in my home. I think the movie is a unique form of high art that was born in America. What I object to is how people turn their brains off when they turn the TV on. I have had co-workers quote television shows like they would an academic paper! Network TV is the new “opiate of the masses”. Like all adictive drugs, there is something good about it or people would never start. If you can moderate your use of this “drug”, go for it. Heavens knows I like a good bottle of wine and a good cup of coffee that are both “drugs” in that sense. Just remember to leave the brain on when watching 