Why do people want to watch television? when watching television they do not have to think. They listen to television watching it because they do not want to think. Thinking is hard, it is alot easier to follow than to lead.
Television is present in a majority of households, in their living rooms. It was unimaginable years ago to have the entire family sitting in front of a box, watching essential fantasies, detached from their lonely existence away from human contact.
It is a medium by which to escape the reality of life, people can watch and be lead. It is alot easier to read a book than to write a book oneself. One need to have thoughts in order to write a book.
Television is the zombification of humanity. Imagine a world where you don’t have television, where you have to interact with the rest of the world, your neighbours, your friends. Instead of watching things happen, why not make it happen yourself. Television blurrs facts from fiction.
I hear more and more lies from television, it manipulate people, more importantly, it takes away the ability to think.
For this very reason, I do not have a television, I am an independant thinker. and I suggest all of you do the same.
As much as I think there is some truth to what you say, I cannot dismiss the fact much of your logic could apply to books, to theater, and to the arts at large; certainly this issue is not as simple as you imply. We gain in wisdom, knowledge and experience from a vast range of sources: television included.
whilest it is true that television and books are all mediums of intellectual exchange. The difference between the two is enormous. good books are written by brilliant intellectuals, they make you think. and you can sit down and ponder about the written word. while television is mainly for entertainment and mass hypnosis.
people who read books are generally intellectuals, for it is difficult to have the patience to read a book than to watch a movie. since it is more intellectually taxing to read a book, only the more intellectually able read them. while the theatre is open to the lowest common denominator. though there are good plays around, but the purpose is mainly to entertain. while books educate, for it is harder to read a book than to watch two clowns dance around silly.
television is the medium by which mass hyponisis is acheived. stop watching it and start thinking yourself.
another point in support of that is, you do less thinking while watching T.V so one is more suspecitable to subliminal messages. unlike reading a book by Adolf Hitler.
It is quite unfair to compare ‘good’ books, written by ‘brilliant intellectuals’, with a holistic, general view of television - just as I wouldn’t have you compare PBS’s Evolution, or Roots, or A Clockwork Orange, to a romance novel.
Movie-buffs are generally intellectuals, too; and keep in mind the works of Shakespeare would be included in terms of what plays are ‘around’. But if you think I was implying television and reading are equal, you’ve missed my point entirely.
And mass-hypnosis had never been achieved before television? By what medium might it have occured then?
Implying one cannot watch it and think for themselves?
Speak for yourself, sir.
It is perhaps in this simple exchange my entire point is manifested.
I prefer to be the one in control of what to be exposed to and when and at what rythm (no “to be continued” stuff). I also prefer to have more interactive activities, such as a movie+lecture at the cinematheque or the internet.
The few good movies on TV don’t justify (in my situation) the cost of monthly repairs and update of the equipment and rental of stuff to watch.
I also get depressed when watching TV, which doesn’t happen to me when reading or watching a good movie at the cinematheque. TV publicity is what depresses me most. Because of the generality of TV, it has to appeal to an average audience, which means it’s more shallow than what my mind feels comfortable with and this causes my depression: the fact that the truths expressed on TV are so not “me” that I feel like an outcast in a world not mine. Eg: if I’m watching a movie and it’s interrupted to explain to me and teach me that what makes a man happy is a dyed red-head with the most expensive clothes and who smokes XYZ, I’d rather be reading something more profound. Not so that I can kiss myself and say “wow, I’m such an intellectual” but because more profound stuff is more realistic, closer to who I am, can teach me something that might help me advance myself. Many people prefer to watch TV and dream for a while that by dying their hair red and smoking XYZ they’ll find happiness and love - but on me, and this is very personal, the effect is the opposite. It feeds those feelings of loneliness and inadequacy that are somewhere to a certain extent in me. And I’ve read several times that even those people who do prefer and enjoy the short-lived fantasy, in the end the effect on them is also a heightening of their feelings of inadequacy and loneliness.
A book is in general a richer experience because you have to fill in the blanks, you have to create the visual and auditory parts, etc., you have to choose, and therefore it’s more interactive and more creative than watching a screen where they choose for you if your eye (and therefore your mind) will concentrate on her b**bs or on the drink or on something else.
All this is just how I feel, not a theory and not an intellectual conviction that someone managed to sell to me that TV is “bad for you”.