Evil T.V. Beautiful Books

As a small child, younger than five, I'm sure, I recall my father getting pissed off about something he saw on television and yanking it from the wall, marching it out to the curb and dropping it in the trash can. I was later told it was because of some filth or other he had seen on there.

Bear in mind, this was before 1970.

It made a huge impression on me. From that point on, until I left home at 17, Mom and Dad were at least conscientious about keeping books in the home for us. Bought encyclopedias for us, read to us at night before bed, the works. We had a very good collection of books for as long as I can remember. My grandparents, being professional eductors also contributed to our library and it was rather substantial and of rather high quality and diversity. Their efforts instilled a love of reading within me at a very young age. I suspect that part of it was a desire to escape the misery of the real world in a Louis L'Amour book, but that's beyond the scope of this text. There are only a very few things which my parents gave to me which are of value and this is probably the biggest and the best favor they ever did for me.

As I grew up and got good at reading, I spent a majority of my time in the library at school, reading everything I could get my hands on. At 7 years old while I was in 2nd grade, I was testing for reading and comprehension ability. As the test was evaluated, I was told I was at a second year university level on both counts. Can we say, "high potential?" I was reading 1,200 wpm which, I've been told, is pretty good. I've never tested for these traits since that time.

NOT having a T.V. was a stigma to us growing up. All of our friends thought we were weird or that our parents were. The latter had pity on us and we took frequent occasion to ask to spend Friday nights at these various friends' homes so we could watch cartoons on Saturday mornings. Summer afternoons were often wasted away watching T.V. shows like "Star Trek" and "Lost in Space." None of these shows really appealed to me since they couldn't compete with the visualizations I created while reading. It was too tough to suspend disbelief with visual effects that, well, sucked. That is, until Star Wars came out. But, since that was only a movie, I couldn't very well watch it every day, either.

Reading seems to have been a positive influence on me in several ways. Back then, I read a lot of fiction which was probably not as good for me as one might think. However, it was a good way for me to learn to spell rather well, to read fast, read well and comprehend readily. I also learned to write fairly well, though I couldn't begin to tell you what a dangling participle is or any other grammatical structure beyond nouns and verbs! Basically, I imitate other people and go with what sounds good. Here, I have to give very high credit to my grandfather who taught me more about writing in one year than most people learn in a lifetime.

By reading mostly fiction and fantasy, however, I missed out on a lot of the classics of literature. To this day, I haven't read Moby Dick, Shakespeare, etc. etc. The classics people normally speak of still have no part of my reading history. I did start to read Harper Lee's, "To Kill a Mockingbird," but it got really boring so maybe I'm just not quite smart enough for the "classics."

Back to television, to round this off, I find that it's a prime waste of time. There was a time early in our marriage when my wife and I bought a T.V. Granted, there are things like the news which have SOME redeeming qualities, SOMEtimes. I loved things like the History Channel, Discovery Channel, Animal Planet, etc. etc. Very good programming most of the time. But even now, I just find that I'd rather put in some time reading a good book or working at the piano. T.V. is a total distraction and unnecessary at that.

When we did have a T.V., I was appalled one day to notice I was scheduling my life around the programming. "No, we won't be able to make it to your party on Friday because we have other plans." The plans were, laughably, watching "Cheers" among other things. How pathetic is that?!! Well, maybe it was just us. But at some point, when we realized we were addicted to it and were doing nothing else productive in our lives, we got rid of the T.V. and to this day, we still don't have T.V. in the home. Well, that is to say, no cable, no antennae, no signal. We do watch a lot of DVD's at home on a decent T.V. but no programming.

The evils of T.V.? Well, for one thing, I think T.V. causes or at least exacerbates ADD/ADHD. Think about it: T.V. has about 6 minutes of a "show" during which the scenes change, probably every 30 seconds or so. Then you have 5 or 6 minutes of commercials where the commercial itself changes every 30 to 60 seconds and within those short time slots, the scenes change in rapid-fire style. Then, another 6 or 8 minutes of T.V. program, more commercials and on and on for as long as you're sitting there watching the show. If you get a T.V. movie, the first block and the last block are sometimes 20 or 30 minutes but they definitely make up for the lost time by using longer commercial breaks for the remainder of the movie.

So picture a kid there watching all this crap and having to tune in to an idea for an instant, then tune into something else for another instant, then something else, then something else, then something else, etc. etc. Is it any wonder that it's difficult for a kid to learn to focus on any one thing for very long?

Of course, there is the complete lack of physical activity, the loss of time which could be spent learning to play the piano or build airplanes or just ride bikes or something else which is actually productive. The "passiveness" of T.V. is simply destructive. Rest assured, there are plenty of kids who, if school weren't "required," would spend their entire days in front of the damn thing and probably do during summer breaks. Parents too, for that matter.

And parents. They make a sad case for T.V. when they frequently say, "But it's such a good babysitter!" Well, okay, I can see using it on occasion when you need a break or need to get some work done without kid distractions. But often enough, it seems parents are using it more as a crutch day by day rather than as an aid from time to time. I don't know. I don't have kids but it seems there HAS to be a better way to discharge your responsibility as a parent as opposed to letting the kids watch T.V. so much and taking the risk of ruining their mental and physical health in the process.

T.V. has provided for the pacification of people in many ways. I think a great many people are plenty content to be happy as long as they have "Sports Center," "CNN" or "General Hospital" available whenever they want it. Who gives a rat's ass about politics when you can be titillated by the MUCH more exciting "Apprentice?!" Why bother writing to a senator or other representative about your opinion when your opinion is being dictated to you by a nameless source on T.V.?

People have been squashed by it. Not to be a dire predictor of doom, but it seems we have allowed T.V. to become our new god, in spite of whatever religion we may profess to believe in. "I heard it on T.V." will become the 11th commandment if it hasn't already!

--Wag--