Bad TV
Most people seem to agree that television, while occasionally entertaining, is nevertheless a waste of time for those who watch it. When compared to other hobbies, interests and activities, television simply fails to show much promise in the area of improving one’s life. After all, no skills are really needed to watch a television program. Beyond knowing how to press buttons on a remote control, what else does someone need to know in order to watch television? There is no requirement that one be at a certain intellectual level, exercise a certain degree of creativity, nor exhibit some degree of physical fitness in order to be “successful” at television watching. Further, after watching television, no worthwhile skills are even developed or enhanced, at least none that are of any real use in daily life. Granted, one could watch something educational on the History Channel for example, but educational programming is not prevalent enough in the television industry to consider the viewers of these programs as “average” television watchers. Therefore, I think it is still fair to say that, on the whole, television watching is little more than a waste of time.
Beyond simply being a waste of time though, I think television watching is actually detrimental to one’s life. Primarily, my concern with television lies in its potential effects on its viewing populace’s thought processes. More precisely, I think television, whether viewed regularly or occasionally, has a very powerful influence on the way one ultimately interacts with their world.
Television is what I call an artificial enterprise. What I mean by that is simply that television deals in nothing other than fantasy—that is, it deals with nothing grounded in reality. The goal of television programming is to get its audience to mistake fantasy for reality—to trick the viewer into forgetting what reality even is in order to “sell” the viewer some kind of alternate reality, the fantasy reality. Everything about the fantasy reality, however, is completely fake. Of course, it is understandable as to why television studios would desire to supplant reality with fantasy—the fantasy is what viewers find so entertaining—so it’s not as though there is much of a mystery here. However, since the goal of television programming is largely motivated toward creating fantasies in the minds of its viewers, how careful should the viewers be in exposing themselves to these artificial realities? After all, it seems fair to say that television programmers are interested in both creating the most convincing of fantasies in the minds of their viewers, and dismantling viewers’ allegiance to reality itself.
If you accept my proposition that television is a completely artificial enterprise, then I suggest you consider the possibility that exposure to it actually competes with the natural world as the basis for one’s beliefs and values about the world. What I mean by this is that rather than using one’s personal experiences with other people, animals, objects, etc. in the real world, people who expose themselves to the artificial realities broadcast through television programs place an obstacle upon themselves that hinders their ability to sort out between what is real and what is not. What happens as a result of this is that people begin to behave in ways consistent with the fantasy world rather than the real world—something that couldn’t possibly be a catalyst for the improvement of human living.
My bottom line is that anyone or anything that seeks to manipulate the ability to distinguish between fantasy and reality deserves serious scrutiny; yet I suspect that more often than not, television is used without a shred of scrutiny. Considering the scale to which television is, and has been, involved in peoples’ lives, it is worth reevaluating our perceptions of it.