Time
A reprt I heard only fleetingly this morning on the radio as I was getting dressed said we Americans sleep more hours than we spend in any other way. The second most hours are spent at work. Third, according to this report (who keeps these numbers?) is watching TV.
While it comes as no surprise, it is sobering to think of the hours spent before this screen that, if you believe Marshall Mcluhan, actually alters one's perceptions of reality. It's not merely the content about which there is so much fuss, and posturing, but the nature of the medium itself that is of consequence.
I discovered this about myself many years ago. I am, I assume, about as addictive a person as most Americans. I have had my bouts with smoking and drinking and eating. But it wasn't until I heard a lecture back in the early 80s, by the head of an elementary school in Boston, in which he spoke about the effects he saw in children from their TV watching, that I seriously took a look at my own.
It was, literally, sobering. I put our TV in the closet, as an experiment, for the forty days of Lent, the church's season of discipline and denial. The children were angry about it; I was devestated. I discovered that I used the medium like a drug. I sat in front of it for hours, my mind numbing into some unreachable dimension.
When Lent ended we left the TV in the closet. Though we have had one, off and on, since, we have never resumed TV watching. Now I wonder where I ever found the time to watch.
I am sometimes chagrined at how removed I am from many conversations. But I am as grateful for having been able to break my TV habit as I am to have quit smoking and drinking martinis.
It gave me my life back.
While it comes as no surprise, it is sobering to think of the hours spent before this screen that, if you believe Marshall Mcluhan, actually alters one's perceptions of reality. It's not merely the content about which there is so much fuss, and posturing, but the nature of the medium itself that is of consequence.
I discovered this about myself many years ago. I am, I assume, about as addictive a person as most Americans. I have had my bouts with smoking and drinking and eating. But it wasn't until I heard a lecture back in the early 80s, by the head of an elementary school in Boston, in which he spoke about the effects he saw in children from their TV watching, that I seriously took a look at my own.
It was, literally, sobering. I put our TV in the closet, as an experiment, for the forty days of Lent, the church's season of discipline and denial. The children were angry about it; I was devestated. I discovered that I used the medium like a drug. I sat in front of it for hours, my mind numbing into some unreachable dimension.
When Lent ended we left the TV in the closet. Though we have had one, off and on, since, we have never resumed TV watching. Now I wonder where I ever found the time to watch.
I am sometimes chagrined at how removed I am from many conversations. But I am as grateful for having been able to break my TV habit as I am to have quit smoking and drinking martinis.
It gave me my life back.
posted by Blayney at 1:59 PM
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