Learning to live without...

I've spent the past 12 months without a television in my house. Which is not to say that I've been without DVD's (watch 'em on my laptop). But it is to say that I've avoided for the most part 12 months of free to air television.
Guess what I learned;
* TV rarely if ever has anything worth the time you invest in it to watch
* If you get rid of your TV it will enable you to have conversations
* You'll also get out the house and into your community more often

and most importantly
* I can honestly say that I did not miss out on a thing

I would encourage everybody to try a week without TV, trust me you won't miss it. By all means watch DVD's to your hearts content, but I suggest you plan doing stuff other than TV watching. Its easier than you think.

Frank Lloyd Wright called the TV 'an ugly piece of furniture' and I agree. Television has become so dumbed down, so pandering to the lowest intellectual percentile that it and I have nothing in common. TV in Australia is terrible, the shows are god awful and force truly mindless drivel in our faces. It reduces the daily syntax, it celebrates presenters of mediocre talent and ability (because they are typical of the audience watching them) and it offends me with its banality and irrelevance.
Further more TV is becoming less and less vital in a world dominated by the internet. With TV you have to watch what they want, when they want. With the internet I can browse, surf, explore and watch what I want, when I want. I can also check my emails, interact with people (to some extent) and more and more importantly I can do so from almost anywhere in the world.

I predict an end to TV as we know it. I predict an end to liner broadcasting. But with most things in life it will not be long before that lower intellectual percentile of the population is on line and then the whole process will be slowed down for them. It will be the final victory of the Bell Curve.

Until then I urge all of you who are smarter than TV to find higher ground before the idiots adopt the internet. That higher ground is in your community, its in your local arts, its in sharing food and conversation, perhaps its in playing a sport or reading a book or listening to the radio.
But it is not in the passive consumption of a medium whose intellectual value is becoming more and more diminished.