TV or not TV? That is the question.

Just say "No" to Elmo

Today on facebook I saw a post by a friend of mine who said she allows her son to watch a little bit of Sesame Street some days.  She was complaining that she hates Elmo—and I can hardly blame her!  But, to my memory, her son is only about fifteen months old—at any rate, I know he is less than two years old—and I couldn't help wondering why she turned on the TV for him at all. 

I can understand the lure of the "electronic babysitter;" I admit I've succumbed to it myself.  And I can understand using the TV as a means of shutting down a tired but overactive brain—a good movie can put me out in twenty minutes.  But why broadcast TV?

When we lived in Tennessee we gave up regular broadcast television.  Not because we were so high-minded, or considered ourselves above it.  I watched television and liked it well enough. No, it was because we were poor and cheap.  We got no television signal out in Murfreesboro, TN , and we didn't want to pay to watch TV (on our 15-inch black and white set) so we didn't get cable either. At first I was able to see a fuzzy version of Friends occasionally.  It was a clever, well-written show, and I liked it pretty well until I was watching one episode where ALL they talked about was sex (the "humorous" schtick was Jennifer Aniston and the dark-haired girl fighting over the last condom in the apartment while a couple of "really hot" guys—apparently one-night stands—waited in the two women's bedrooms).  I turned it off in disgust, and after that we just watched our meager supply of—mostly children's—video tapes. (And let me tell you, Homeward Bound loses whatever charm it may have had pretty quickly when watched several times a week on a small, black and white screen!)

I do love Arthur

Well we lived that way  for about three and a half years (although eventually we did upgrade for a bigger, color TV and we got a few more movies), and then we moved back to Utah and lived with our regular TV-watching family for a while.  And you know what?  Suddenly everything on television—even shows we had previously liked—just seemed stupid.  (Except for Arthur—the kid's show. I love Arthur.) 

So when we got our own house we just didn't bother to start watching TV again.  DVD's?  Yes, a few times a week—sometimes several a week.  We are pretty much in the dark about what new movies are coming out, since they are advertised on TV, and when people tell us about that hilarious television commercial for such-and-such we have no idea what they're talking about.  My loyal readers (all five of you) may disagree, but from what I hear there's not really anything on the tube worth giving our time and attention to. We really don't miss it.  Not only that, but I find that our tolerance level for mindless sex, violence, and vulgar humor has dropped incredibly low—which, I think, cannot be a bad thing.

For example, Bruce, while working a sales job last summer, was in a client's house waiting for the other half of the couple to get home.  While he was there they were watching what Bruce described to me as the most vile show he's seen:  Two and a Half Men.  By his description, the entire episode was about sex and the conclusion reached by the main characters was that life would be better if they all just went into their own rooms and masturbated.  This is humor?  Lovely.  But just a few weeks after Bruce told me about this I saw another facebook friend—a nice, decent, moral young woman—talk about how happy she was that she got to watch that same show (probably not the same episode), and how cute and funny it was. 
???
A while ago I went to my mom's house while she and my dad happened to be watching one of those crime shows (CSI?).  I was exposed to a completely naked woman who'd been beaten and stabbed multiple times lying on the table of the morgue while the main characters talked about how terrible it was.  This is entertainment?    Why don't we all just go down to the arena and watch some gladiators kill each other? 
It was terrible, but my parents—who are really great people whom I love and respect—didn't seem too bothered by what they were seeing. 
I can only guess that everyone has become very immune to the things that my family now finds offensive.

Would I try to push our non-TV lifestyle onto everyone around me?  No.  Do I think that time spent in front of the TV could be better spent?  Well... yeah.  (Of course my kids would like to trade the same childhood hours I spent watching The Brady Bunch for playing computer video games instead.  *sigh*, but we are slowly changing things in that arena.)

No.  I don't insist on telling the world, "Get away from the boob-tube!"  But I will issue a challenge for anyone who is interested:  Can you go TV-free for two weeks?  You can still watch your movie collection, but no broadcast TV.  If you decide to take me up on it, let me know how it goes. :-)