social awareness guide #3: turn off the tv

After the earlier post of healthy choices, and this one on turning off the TV, you must think I'm a total square. Well, perhaps I am, but I do think I'm right in this regard. Besides, my suggestion isn't to ask you to stop watching TV shows, just not watch it from the TV.

Eh?

Okay, I used to be glued to the TV all the time. When I was living in a dorm and had free cable, I would leave the set on almost all night and day, usually on 24-hr cable news like CNN. After I moved into an apartment, after it became a pain to have to watch TV in the living room, I slowly stopped watching it. We had a digital recorder then, so I could always watch shows on it without having to adjust my life to the TV. Eventually, I stopped watching it altogether. After I moved again, I didn't even apply for cable. I don't even have the antennae connected to my TV.

I'm not a typical high-brow, elitist who thinks Frasier was the shit (never watched it; it could be the shit) and the current TV shows are "stupid." My favorite shows were/are Friends, Scrubs, Family Guy, The Simpsons, Futurama, Seinfeld, The Daily Show, Arrested Development, Iron Chef, and Desperate Housewives. But now that I've stopped watching TV, whenever I turn it on - for example, when I'm at a hotel - I just cannot believe the dribble that passes for entertainment these days. How these shows ever got on TV is unbelievable, and I began to wonder whether it was supposed to be that bad.

But I haven't stopped watching all TV shows because there are some that entertain me. And what I had to say about the dribble is just a personal opinion anyway. But I watch these shows either on DVD or through the Internet. The benefit is that 1) I don't have to suffer through the commercials, and 2) I don't have to shape my life to the TV schedule. Now, if you have something like TiVo, and if you can find ways of skipping the commercials, great. Do that. But if now, just remember that there are other ways of watching TV shows.

Over the years I've grown to be against TV. I should say, I've grown to be against the type of lifestyles that gathers around TV. Perhaps it's not the fault of the TV, or even the shows per se, it's just that it's so easy to be sucked into that lifestyle where all you do is sit or lay there flipping channels and watching reruns you've seen before. I know people who, after a certain hour, just sit in front of the TV watching the endless line of reruns. Even my family in Malaysia, whenever we go back, seem to be stuck in front of the TV despite the fact that many of us traveled thousands of miles from different corners of the world to see each other.

I should say that I study and play video games, which is also something that people have blamed for turning players into mindless robots. I definitely agree that if you play eight hours a day - and I've been there - you are overdoing it. So, I want to make sure that I'm not be hypocritical here. I do think that there's a difference between playing a video game, when your mind is actively solving problems - and watching reruns. It would be like the difference between driving a car, and watching a photo of a car. In any case, I don't think people should play too many video games either, just as I don't think people should read too many books (at the expense of being aware of the people around them.)

If you take just one minute out of each day observing something or someone you care about, you really being realize how unfortunate it is that we turn to things like TV for our exclusive entertainment.