Chauntecleer of the Pricking Cock

In a move that would seem shocking to many, I have decided that I want to give up television completely. As in FOREVER. The reasons are many, and I do not feel like stating them all at this moment, but I shall list a few:

1.) Time


I read somewhere that the average person (in a developed country with easy access to TV in the household, I should clarify) watches about 4 hours of television every single day. My father sure does! Over the course of an average lifetime, that is around 9 YEARS cumulative time spent lounging in front of a screen. NINE YEARS of essentially staring at a wall with your mind turned off. Think of how those NINE YEARS could be better spent by meeting more people, interacting with nature, reading books, writing books, traveling, relaxing, and just generally experiencing more out of our already short lives.

2.) The Commercial Aspect of Television

Television exists in order to sell us things, be they products or manufactured/intentionally narrow ideas of what the nature of our reality is like. The shows themselves are not the greatest aim of TV networks, but rather the commercials themselves. Networks hope to create popular shows that gain high ratings so they can charge more for the commercial spots. That is how they make their money, of course. Networks do not generally conceive shows to challenge the human mind or to aim for aesthetically high artistic goals. When I go out in the everyday world, I am, unfortunately, unrelentlessly bombarded with advertising, and I hate it. I hate how corporations decide, through advertising, every aspect of how our culture should be from our morals to fashion to even political beliefs. In my philosophy (and I am thinking of spending the time to write just what my philosophy IS, eventually), the house should be a sacred place that is a shield from the outside world. That so much advertising (and thus, a non-stop stream of information that is propagated by the elite decision makers on how we should think and act) permeates the home is appalling to me.

3.) The Idiot Box Drug

It makes people dumb. It really does. I am NOT suggesting that all people who watch TV are stupid, not by any means, but my gripe centers on those so-called average viewers that watch four hours a day. Generally, these people are not too fond of reading, at least in my experience, and their sole source of information is based off of what they glean from TV. If one thinks about it, it is not that possible to learn THAT much from it. Sure, you do have the informational stations such as the Discovery Channel and the History Channel, and those channels certainly are a cut above the average filth on TV, but one will still not learn nearly as much from watching those channels as he or she could learn from actual research. But my gripe does not lay with those channels. My gripe primarily rests with the big networks that provide nothing mentally engaging. In my opinion, all news shows and news channels are trash and it is they that irk me the most in all of televisiondom. There is no real diversity of opinion on the news "debate" shows: television almost always simplifies every argument into a white and black issue when in reality, there are so many sides to many issues that it requires real critical thinking; i.e. independent thought and research, to formulate educated and valid opinions.

Remember how I stated that television is run by elite corporations that have a real interest in how the TV-viewing masses' opinions? Even when we are given "two sides" to an issue (the Democratic and Republican sides here in America), they are still only the "orthodox" views that are allowed by those benefiting from restricting thought. Any real dissent is almost never allowed on the air, and in the few instances that it is, the "talking heads" are quick to denounce those views as belonging to "wackos" and "anti-American traitors."

Furthermore, television is really no different than a drug in that people get addicted to it, and when they go without it, they are unable to function well. As I stated before, my dad is one of those addicted to television; when he is not working, there is NOTHING else that he'd rather do. During a power outage last year, he was robbed of his precious television and the boredom of being without power and thus his TV was unbearable for him. I remember well the agitated and anxious look on his face and his mannerisms such as squirming in his seat and twiddling his thumbs. I observed him, felt a degree of pity for him because he is so dependent on this visual drug, and proceeded to read The Iliad (awesomeness!) by candlelight. There are plenty of things that one can do without power. Who knows, maybe even TALK TO EACH OTHER! HUMAN INTERACTION, OH MY!

I am not exactly well researched on this, and as I am not writing a research paper on this now but rather an essay just for my own personal satisfaction, I am not going to provide sources on this right at this moment (2:20 A.M.), although I likely will at a later date, but I have read several articles that provide evidence that television can alter our brain waves and even induce an hypnotic state. I think that it is a common experience for us to feel as though we "zone out" when we watch TV. I know that I have plenty of times! And I'm sorry for this, but I'm going to mention my parents again for this, because they watch more TV than anybody else I know and they are convenient for me to observe! When they watch TV, they look exactly like zombies. They have a glazed-over, nearly lifeless look in their eyes. Their mouths hang open. If I didn't know better, I would think that they have just received a lobotomy. I look at them and ask myself if I EVER want to find myself in such a state of mental lassitude, and the answer is a resounding NO!

I think that I have read from psychologists (again, I'm not citing exact sources here, but I do need to research this more in depth and collect sources) that the human brain needs constant stimulation. If it does not receive outside stimulation, then it will stimulate itself in the form of thought. But television provides stimulation for the mind that bypasses thought. We see the moving images, and we hear its sounds, and that apparently is enough to stimulate our brain to the exclusion of thinking. We essentially enter a trance-like state when watching TV. But when a person does not watch TV, he or she will find that their mind needs some other source of stimulation, and it is in these moments that such a person would find this needed stimulation through reading books, interacting with other humans or with nature, thinking, or enjoying creative pursuits. Don't those activities sound like more fun than entering into a trance-like zombie state for four hours a night?

In conclusion, television to me represents total MIND CONTROL



Let me state that it is possible to watch TV and have it not control your mind, but the key is to recognize the negative aspects of it and be aware of them while you watch. Also, make sure that any TV-watching is done in moderation. It is no different than alcohol in how it affects the mind. An addicted viewer will certainly develop a dependence upon television much like an alcoholic develops a dependence upon alcohol. I must admit that I have grown up watching TV, loving TV (especially the cartoons of my youth such as DUCKTAILS, NINJA TURTLES, and THE SIMPSONS), and I too used to be a slave to The Box. But I have not watched very much TV at all in the last couple of years, actually, and I feel that I have become much more creative since then. I still have a TV, and sometimes I play the occasional video game on it (I love Zelda games, but really, I CAN do without them in the future), but when I hopefully move out on my own into my own apartment (hopefully later this year), TV will not be making the move with me. Perhaps it is ironic that I am giving up television in this day and age of High-Definition TVs, but I could save those couple of thousand dollars for stuff that I NEED, or maybe even a TRIP! I might write a separate post about this, but I don't really need to spend (waste) ANY money on corporate-created "entertainment" (this includes movies and video games) when I have the uncharted realms of my very own mind that I can explore for FREE!

I will never buy another TV.