Since Analog Television went digital just over a month ago
I haven’t watched television. I haven’t been a big television viewer
since I was a kid.
I must admit that I do miss certain shows like Law and Order, America’s most Wanted,
Masterpiece Theatre, Frontline, but not enough to go out to Walmart and buy a converter box for my television.
In fact not only do I not miss watching the news, I think I am much healthier both emotionally as well as intellectually for not watching. I can get my news online and I am so grateful that I missed the over saturation of the death of Michael Jackson coverage. I mean its just so overkill, how many times can you hear about the same details over and over again without losing your mind.
Also, until you stop watching television completely, you don’t realize how much of your time it frees up to do other things, healthier things like walking, running or getting together with a friend for a bike ride etc.
Lives are wasted watching television, its like a drug for so many American’s which reminds me I absolutely do not miss all the obnoxious commercials pushing prescription drugs on me, as well as the being blasted off my sofa when the volume of the commercials is conveniently so much louder than the actual program I’m wathching, a ploy the advertising industry has been using for the past 25 years since they know at some point you will undoubtedly need to go the kitchen and/or bathroom.
I read a lot more now that I am T.V. free, I am currently reading UNDERGROUND by Mark Rudd, and STATIC by Amy Goodman, a few issues of the SUN magazine as well as a past issue of SALMAGUNDI-the Skidmore publication. I encourage my readers to go on a “television fast” for a week just to see for yourself how much more you will get accomplished. You won’t regret it.
I once went on a televison fast for six months. I simply unpluged it and read. Some books were great, some not so much. But I can say that in that six months I grew a lot as a person. Reading is a necessary part of growing emotionally and intelectually. freedom of the press is the most important freedom we have here in the Untied States in my opinion. It makes us check who we are and allows us to check who governs us. It doesn't get any better than that!
Good for you, Nancy. I've been tv-free since about 2002 and I love it. I still have a tv but it gets no signal and I have no cable, I just use it to watch dvds (mostly docs but the occasional film as well).
I can't claim that I am smarter asa result but I have noticed two very distinctive things;
1 – As you said, LOTS more free time.
2 – I am allergic to commercials. I actually get mad when I hear them on the radio or when I am watching commercial tv with others. I have become so much more aware of how everything is about selling not just products but ideologies and monoculture as well.
Readers of the Underground book might also be interested in checking out the "columbia songs for a democratic society" music site at the following link, since they reflect a revolutionary working-class populist perspective:
http://www.myspace.com/bobafeldman68music
Also, the "Sundial: Columbia SDS Memories" public domain manuscript that's posted on the following blog link describes from a working-class point of view some of the same 60s history that Mark writes about from a white middle-class point of view:
http://bfeldman68.blogspot.com/2007/01/sundial-columbia-sds-memories-table-of.html
And the "Fugitive Generation"/"Bloggywood" screenplay that's posted on the following blog link reflects fictionally somewhat the early 1970s anti-war movement that's described in the Underground book:
http://thefugitivegeneration.blogspot.com/2009/04/fugitive-generation-i.html
Hey b.f.
thanks for the info, much appreciated.
Power to the people
Citizen Nancy