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Personal experience: This household went from grilling outside, enjoying a few beers and hanging out to everyone in a different room sitting in front of the tv for hours. On the occasion that tv is watched together, no one is talking. This place has turned into everyone being ghosts. Living but not really existing.
Think about it... will they be near death one day and say "man, I sure am glad I watched that season of 'insert popular show here'!!!" Or will they say "wow, life really passed me by and I didn't even get to enjoy simple human interaction.."
This kind of depresses me. I long for a decent conversation, and when approaching them all they can mutter is a couple of words before focusing back to the television. This goes on from about 6 p.m. to 12 a.m. until they fall asleep. Think about how significant that amount of time equates to over a year.
This isn't about being an introvert or an extrovert, it is about the most popular addiction in American history, and possibly globally.
Your thoughts? Are you guilty of this as well? What can we do to change it, if anything?
Personal experience: This household went from grilling outside, enjoying a few beers and hanging out to everyone in a different room sitting in front of the tv for hours. On the occasion that tv is watched together, no one is talking. This place has turned into everyone being ghosts. Living but not really existing.
Think about it... will they be near death one day and say "man, I sure am glad I watched that season of 'insert popular show here'!!!" Or will they say "wow, life really passed me by and I didn't even get to enjoy simple human interaction.."
This kind of depresses me. I long for a decent conversation, and when approaching them all they can mutter is a couple of words before focusing back to the television. This goes on from about 6 p.m. to 12 a.m. until they fall asleep. Think about how significant that amount of time equates to over a year.
This isn't about being an introvert or an extrovert, it is about the most popular addiction in American history, and possibly globally.
Your thoughts? Are you guilty of this as well? What can we do to change it, if anything?
I often wonder when I watch period movies or read period books that took place long before the invention of television if people who had to use their creativity to entertain themselves and actually socialize with their neighbors were just more interesting, and more intelligent human beings ... Are we more anti social and less intelligent as a society then we were?
To top it off, when you do have conversations with people, they invariably relate actual occurrences to television shows and movies which you have no knowledge of. My favorite is when a television reporter will interview some eyewitness to a tragedy and they will say "It was just like the movies". LOL, no, the movie was just like reality.
Last edited by Oldhag1; 02-15-2015 at 02:26 PM..
Reason: Removed icon
Further, the scene you describe about people watching TV from certain hours............only really applies in pre VCR days.
A further curious thing about TV and movies is that they often show us a life that is not about watching TV. I tend to see and dream about the subthemes I see in stuff, such as in "You Only Live Twice" where 007 says, "Well, if I am going to be forced to watch television, may I at least smoke?". Now, of course, that line is especially directed at the current events going on in the movie, but the concept of a modern man who doesn't watch TV is fascinating.
Of course, he doesn't have time, he's rarely home. When he is home, he is probably more focused on entertaining his date. That's their kind of life, be it Bond, Moneypenny (ie, Samantha Bond), or Purdey of The New Avengers.
In my own case, since I am no longer tied to evening TV (first by being a night worker and second by reality TV destroying my TV habit entirely), I am amazed of all the things I may do this or that evening.
But A and B. First of all, it does generate a kind of isolated feeling from what the rest of the country may be experiencing. References to TV characters, personalities, movies coming out, trends, jokes made by talk show hosts, events that happen at the Superbowl, and so forth are lost on me.
A grand example or two is that I didn't know about the hoopla of Janet Jackson, even though I seen a thumbpic of it, till the following Thursday. Or about Cicely at the video awards? For the longest time, I thought Cicely was the boy in the zebra suit. Not watching TV contributes much to my Serina Complex of "Incredibly intelligent but quite ignorant of popular culture".
Secondly, I'm probably not the best example since I do not go easily with modern technology. My phone is a Razr, I hardly stream, I still watch DVDs and tapes, etc..
Before TV people did entertain themselves by reading and reading to others or by playing an instrument or games or doing some hobby or craft. I don't think parents heard the words "I'm bored" whined by their kids until the late 80's.
I remember the days at family gatherings when the eating was done that we would play games today just last night as a matter of fact we were watching a movie and we were all on our laptops including my 80 year old mother in law.
The only thing we can do to change the TV addiction is to turn it off but I fear we would all just sit and stare at each other until someone muttered "I'm Bored"..
Let me add the caveat that I think people are a lot less trustworthy today than they used to be. Too many backstabbers to truthfully enjoy spending time with others. If you can find it though it is an incredibly rewarding experience, but if you lose it afterwards it will destroy your life.
While television definitely has an overbearing dominance in many people's lives, I do not feel that it is the primary culprit in destroying our levels of social activity.
Mobile phones, more specifically smart phones, have a huge negative impact in how people interact with each other. Many people would prefer to text each other than converse over the phone or face to face. My wife and I were out to dinner with a friend, his teenage daughter and her boyfriend joined us. Her and her boyfriend didn't say a word the entire time, but spent the entire dinner on their phones texting each other. They might as well have been halfway around the world from each other rather than sitting together at a restaurant.
Worse yet, people will sit on their phone and do things like browse Facebook or play a game during other activities at home or while out in a social setting. I will be driving and someone is a passenger in my car and they cannot hold a conversation because they are texting someone else or looking at their Facebook. Entire families out to dinner, often times the kids are playing games on their phones (why do kids need phones?) while the parents talk, but more often I will see mom and dad on their phones as well. Such a nice family dinner when everyone is just staring down at their phone in front of them.
I do agree that the average person - at least in America - spends entirely too much time watching TV, I would argue that smart phone addiction is the greatest threat to social activity and interaction.
The threat from television also isn't purely a social threat - how is it that in this day and age we have 500 TV channels, infinite sources of information via the internet, but people in general seem to be more ignorant and generally uninformed on issues and current events? The average American could tell you what Kim Kardashian had for breakfast, but couldn't name their state Senators.
We watch about 5 to 6 hours of TV per week, less in the summer and sometimes more during NHL playoffs. Like most things it is what you make of it. Everything is recorded onto the PVR other than hockey or CFL football and the odd DVD borrowed from the library. I know someone who watchs more TV than me and did not even know who Kim Kardashian is. We would watch more TV and have more social outings if my wife did not want to spend so much time reading, so I blame books for the destruction of social activity, at least for us.
Personal experience: This household went from grilling outside, enjoying a few beers and hanging out to everyone in a different room sitting in front of the tv for hours. On the occasion that tv is watched together, no one is talking. This place has turned into everyone being ghosts. Living but not really existing.
Think about it... will they be near death one day and say "man, I sure am glad I watched that season of 'insert popular show here'!!!" Or will they say "wow, life really passed me by and I didn't even get to enjoy simple human interaction.."
This kind of depresses me. I long for a decent conversation, and when approaching them all they can mutter is a couple of words before focusing back to the television. This goes on from about 6 p.m. to 12 a.m. until they fall asleep. Think about how significant that amount of time equates to over a year.
This isn't about being an introvert or an extrovert, it is about the most popular addiction in American history, and possibly globally.
Your thoughts? Are you guilty of this as well? What can we do to change it, if anything?
I agree with you
The only way to change it is for people to realize how pointless boring and lame their current lives are and strive to make changes
Looking at other peoples lives sadly makes me realize daily how lucky I am not to be like them
It wasn't television when there was one television in the house it became the entertainment center which added pictures to radio. So all could enjoy a small stage play rather then mom playing a number from Broadway on the house piano. There was still the interaction of the entire family over that single program chosen.
It was the multiplication of screens and cheap ear buds which allow everybody to narrow cast their very own micro preference and interact with no one. Now you have young cousins who visit instead of playing with each other directly have their heads in their individual, game unit, tablet or laptop and if you are lucky they might tell their cousin about the game they have that the other hasn't tried yet.
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