Wax Elastic: Boob Tube? Well I Never!

Keep out of reach of children.

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April 22, 2004

Boob Tube? Well I Never!

More and more people are just saying 'No' to owning a television. I'm not suggesting that I would do anything as reckless as that, but the people who do, stand by it. They have myriad reasons for not owning one: Never owned one; there's nothing good on; I would watch too much; I hate America. One thing seems true, people who love television think those who don't watch are losing out on a part of life.

Ironic how sitting and watching six hours of television a day constitutes 'life'. But what about those in between TV times when we are conversing with our fellow man. The conversation inevitably finds it's way to a show we saw, a quote we make that we expect our friend to know, celebrity gossip, or products.

My father, who saw the popularity of television grow from it's genesis, says there are three stages of conversation (I'm not sure if it's his idea, but he's my source):

Talking about ideas, talking about events, and talking about things(people, places, products).
Going from highest to lowest respectively.

After hearing this philosophy, I couldn't disagree. So following that idea, to have the highest form of conversation you don't need a TV, while for the second two it certainly helps.

I subscribe to a half-assed solution. I think owning a television is good, it works for me. I have a TiVo* which allows me to watch less. But I think about when I was a kid and the effect television had on me. I would watch from 3ish to 8ish, mostly cartoons. The result? I have a pretty good grasp on pop culture, I do well with Trivial Pursuit, and know all my classical music from Looney Tunes. On the playground however, I would imagine that since kids don't talk about ideas too much, events and things was all I'd have -- my source material being the tube.

I'm curious what effect not having a television had on those kids. My friend's who currently don't own televisions only suffer from a significant lack of celebrity name recognition. Beyond that it doesn't seem to have had any effect.

[UPDATE:] I just found out it's TV Turnoff Week. Delicious.

[UPDATE:] * Since getting TiVo, I watch significantly less television. I don't make time for shows, I just record everything. If I actually watch something, I cut out commercials and slow bits. But most of the time I forget I have the show recorded and skip it altogether. I get a hell of a lot of work done instead.

"Ring-a-levyo Rules" -- c/o Dad instead of watching TV.

Group of at least 20 is divided into two teams. A area "usually one square city block is designated as "In bounds".

No team member can leave or hide outside of this area.
One team (A) is selected to guard a "home base" where it tries to "capture" all of the ten members of the opposing team (B).
A time limit usually of 30 minutes is set.
The game begins with team B running away in every direction possible and trying to avoid capture by team A members.
To capture someone, you must grab him and shout "ring-a-levyo 1, 2, 3". He is then transported to the "home base".
Several of the members of the A team are stationed as "guards" at the home base.
The reason is that any of the still free members of the captured team can free all the captured by touching a border of the "home base" and shouting "ring-a-levyo 1,2,3" .

Thats starts the game all over again with everyone free.
A wins if it captures all of B
B wins if time runs out with not everyone captured.

Posted by davidissimo :: Permalink :: Comments [7] ::

A few things:

1) It goes both ways; people who don't have TVs think people who do are missing out on a part of life. Specifically, they're missing out on whatever it is they'd be doing if they weren't watching TV. Reading more books. Seeing more shows. Going to the zoo more often. Etc.

2) Amazingly, kids managed to grow up interacting with each other, finding things to do and things to talk about, for the hard-to-believe-but-true thousands of years before the invention of TV.

Conversation doesn't inevitably find its way to a television quote. Rather, conversation inevitably finds its way to common, shared experiences. If that shared experience is TV or TV-related, fine; then you'll talk about TV. But those of us who don't watch TV still read the newspaper, listen to the radio, surf the 'net, and generally find plenty of things to talk about.

And I do hate America. I hate it with a passion. It burns inside of me like that damned eternal flame at Kennedy's grave (ooo, look, a cultural reference sans TV!). :)

Posted by: alex at April 22, 2004 01:03 PM

1) I agree with you, it does go both ways...but I enjoy the no-muss no-fuss luxury of television escapism and consider that an activity. I still do the other things, but partake in the occasional Belvedere or Small Wonder when the mood suits me.

2) My dad is in that group of kids without television. They had their equivalent, whether it be radio, pulp fiction or comics, etc (Dad, feel free to correct my blatantly under-researched assumption). And thousands of years ago, looking at rocks in a pit of dirt was a mighty good time, I'm told. My niece and nephew are in the low-tv-consumption camp, I will be sure to ask them what their daily conversation pertains to...I'm sure its "Nothing".

As for your distaste for America, it concerns me only so far as it might infringe on those things that represent America. Hating a country is fine. But hating apple pie, Willard Scott and happy children...well I draw the line there mister.

Posted by: davidissimo at April 22, 2004 01:40 PM

As a kid without TV....it seemed we were constantly searching with our friends for "things to do"..We never were to far away from finding one. There were kids everywhere out on our street with no TV to go home too. So we were all first generation "gamers" Only the games were stick-ball, punch ball and ring-a-levyo ( Rules available upon request ).
You guys don't know what you're missing....

Posted by: david's dad at April 22, 2004 01:49 PM

Good read David.

I'm not a huge fan of tv. I grew up without cable. I felt like I was missing out on MTV growing up, but big deal... Like you said, it's just pop culture.

Now that I have cable, I tend to watch more tv. Although it seems like there's a ton of junk on. I usually gor for TLC, A&E, CourtTV, and news stuff. The reality show novelty wore off when the first Survivor came to an end. Of course Fox had to rape the reality show idea and throw a monkey wrench into the mix. What would our lives be without Celebrity Spelling Bee, Man vs. Beast, or Who Wants to Marry a Gold Digger?

I'll admit, I enjoyed the premiere episodes of the latest reality show "Family Plots". But I'm a sucker for anything entertaining in the death industry.

Posted by: Jenny J. at April 23, 2004 10:50 AM

My sister has a friend who lives in Canada with her husband. They made a conscious decision not to have a TV. A counselor at their child's school charged with them child abuse, claiming that the lack of a TV deprived their child of a cultural experience common with other children. They were able to get the charge dropped, but it was a very upsetting experience for them. As far as I know, they are still TV-free.

Posted by: tom at April 24, 2004 01:55 PM

Jenny, just following up something you said, I think it's interesting that MTV is one of those channels that I've always associated with learning about pop culture. The good ol' days of MTV are long gone and now it's just an amalgam of reality shows and blind date. I'm not sure today's youth would "learn" the same things we did from that channel, so I'm not sure they are missing anything.

Some people in my family were not allowed to watch the MTV until well into their teens. At the time I thought that was crazy, but I look at them now as adults and apparently it didn't have much of an effect on them. I would, however, like to know about their school days.

Tom, in response to you, I wish you were in last week. I think in some respects it can be harmful to a kid if they are in that type of social environment. It could be tantamount to not having the coolest sneakers, the right haircut or the right friends. All of these are fuel for the ostracism fire. I wouldn't say that it's child abuse per se, but I would ask my kids opinion on the subject if they asked for TV privileges. Then again, life is pretty easy from the cheap seats. When I have kids, I'm not sure what I would do. MTV would probably be off limits, unless they bring back 24 hour video rotations.

Posted by: davidissimo at April 24, 2004 06:21 PM

While preparing to finish graduate school in May with a masters degree in teaching, I just attended a workshop on this exact subject....well, kind of. It was about violence in the media (the media that is watched and heard by kids today).
Just like anything else, there are two sides to every issue:
side one--kids aren't learning anything good from the shows or channels that they are watching and studies show that their creativity will thrive more by not watching as much tv. kids will have better critical thinking skills and more imagination if they don't watch as much tv. tv is the current baby-sitter choice adopted by parents and guardians. 1 in every 4 children under the age of 6 has a tv in their room.
side two--by restricting limits like this, kids will grow up too sheltered and not street smart. tv can be quite helpful and if parents aren't around enough, the tv is a safer and better companion than a possible group of friends who do drugs and other "bad stuff."
....And, like everything else, these two extremes are not the answer, in my opinion. I take the third side where children, if they do watch tv, are able to talk about the things they see in their homes and classrooms without being told "that's not appropriate for right now." Obviously they need to talk it out and make sense of it now; otherwise they wouldn't be bringing it up in the first place.

Posted by: Nicole at April 24, 2004 10:02 PM

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