I tend to agree with the author and don’t miss TV much. The computer is an interactive TV. But it hurts my concentration. I could spend over 12 hours a day doing my mostly manual job. Before I had the computer I would put cable shows on for background noise. Radio reception always wandered. It could have easily been a radio because I wouldn’t actually watch the program – usually movies and comedies. I would have to hear a movie several times before I ever really understood what it was about.

But I live on a very small income and it costs money to just take the car out and go downtown and there really isn’t much social interaction to be found by doing that.

I have no immediate relatives in the area. And I am nearly a senior myself. So many of the older generation is gone now. I seldom see or talk to the neighbors, don’t get out much and am becoming like my widower father who sits in front of the TV all day because he needs something to remind him what a human voice sounds like. He lives 300 miles away and I send him links to my comments.

The country is built for social isolation. In fact it depends on it, or community activities tend to become volatile. When I first moved to this neighborhood I got involved in local politics and the government of the small district I lived in and also with other local events. Although there would normally not have been much to do with a neighborhood of 300 house and about 1500 residents of all ages, it became an aggravating, very dishonest, enormously time consuming and frustrating experience. It is daunting to have to talk to numerous residents and it was also a fright to realize that one becomes an object of admiration and or scorn depending on the situation. It ended up in a violent argument with a fellow commissioner.

I tell myself never to get involved with any group that does not have a clear understanding of the laws that are supposed to govern their conduct – never volunteer for unpaid positions (it ac carried a small stipend that could be eaten up with travel expenses etc.), especially if they confer any legal responsibility, and don’t volunteer for positions that cost you more to participate in them than if you just contributed the funds and stayed home.

But that leaves the TV that I now use to play old movies on VHS. I make my own homemade cable channel. It’s better sometimes than listening to tinitis sounds in my
ears. If I had my way and could afford it, I would live in a city where one can at least see people and explore cultural and educational opportunities in person without needing to drive at least 100 miles to the nearest city that hosts a few.

But it is a shame and some kind of crime that affluence now brings social contact. It sued to be the social norm that affluence brought the ability to be separate from the life of the street. Now one needs money to be able to get there at all? It is a bitter irony.

While there is much to consider in Professor Sachs’ editorial, I think painting television and video media in general as harmful is as sweeping a generalization as asserting that pharmaceuticals are harmful because many people choose to abuse drugs. Just as with any potentially addictive substance, there must be controls placed on content and accessibility (just as for drugs and alcohol), both by the media itself and by the government agencies responsible for oversight. Media corporations never do this voluntarily, left to their own devices, there is far too much money and political influence at stake. A case of “Fox” guarding the hen house, pardon the pun.

I would propose a corporate tax on content “which serves little or no socially or educationally redeeming value” — infomercials come immediately to mind — as well as a ban on certain forms of marketing and programming (e.g. ads aimed directly at children and the very young). PBS has done a reasonable job with programming in the United States for many decades, and now is the time for commercial media to adopt and adapt, before it is too late. Maybe it already is.

Together with the other large scale experiment – the automobile for everybody – TV is influencing everybody and changing the world. In some cases it might be to the better by breaking up conservative and opressive traditions, but in most cases it is to the worse. With the internet and future virtual spaces, I believe TV (and maybe the automobile) will loose its grip on us, but it will be replaced by the next global scale experiment.

There is so much that we typically incorporate into our lives that is intellectually, physically, emotionally, and/or spiritually deleterious, yet so much a part of our American culture (of course, not just in America) that we don’t question the possibility of long-term adverse effects.

To make matters worse, so much of what we are engaged in or ingesting, in one way or another, throughout our day has gotten its role in our lives by virtue of the fact that it’s making someone else money, as opposed to being something positive in our lives. The idea that it’s a good thing for us to have, ingest or do has been sold to us so that someone else can make a lot of money. And if there was a way one could figure out the ideal way to live, they would most likely be ostracized, have difficulty finding work, friends, and a mate. That’s how far off track I believe we are. Heck, sometimes just being nice can be challenging in today’s world. People will try to take advantage of you, view you as weak or lacking ambition, or simply uncool.

It’s a serious problem and I’m afraid the only answer is to learn to become truly free thinkers, as much as possible, and attempt to make decisions about our daily lives based on what is best for us and our loved ones as opposed to what some advertisement, politician, or co-worker is telling us we should do. Just because everyone else is doing something doesn’t mean it’s a good idea, and probably means the opposite.

One of the most interesting and useful college courses I took was a course on persuasion. This included everything from persuasion as it’s employed in personal relationships, to commercial advertising and politics. I would argue that such a course should be required for all students, and long before college. It was basically a course in assisting us in developing free thinking and how to recognize when someone is trying to sell us on a product or an idea. The idea is to learn to peel off the bs and make your decisions on the most elemental factors involved. This is something sorely lacking in our society, and sorely needed. To realize just how important this concept is, consider that the rise of Hitler and Nazism would have been impossible had Germans been better equipped to recognize and resist propaganda as a nation of free thinkers.

Thanks for a great, thought-provoking piece, Prof. Sachs. I couldn’t agree with you more.

If you are an adult then if you choose to watch ‘jersey shore all day long and it’s like’ then you are probably a dumbass to start with (unless you have drinks and have turned viewing this TV junk-food into a drinking game).
TV hasn’t ‘made’ you dumb; you are just ‘dumb’ to start with more than likely (BTW: reading ‘people’ &/or ‘star’ magazine will also make you dumb!).

Likewise if you watch the history channel or the BBC or its equivalent, then perhaps you could learn something that possibly you could pass along to your children so they wont become ‘dumb’ too.

I also agree with other commentators here — someone actually got paid to write this dribble?! Unbelievable.