Today's the day. If you live in one of the 2.8 million homes still reliant on a purely analog TV signal, you may be losing your signal right about now.
But maybe that's not such a disaster. Perhaps today's digital switchover is a good opportunity for all of us to reevaluate the role that TV plays in our lives.
I admit: I called for the coupon and bought the converter box. And I acknowledge that there is plenty of excellent TV out there. More channels has led to more choice and more innovation. I'm even willing to yield to Steven Johnson that some TV, in moderation, helps expand our brains.
Still, TV is pretty much a giant suction hose on our time and our brains. Very little good comes of it. I'm all for a daily dose of entertainment -- some escape, some silliness, a good heaping dose of belly laughter. But a little decent TV goes a very long way. We'd all be better off if we watched a lot less.
Remember: none of us are ever fixed in our intelligence or abilities. We are all works in progress. How we spend our time and attention matters.
It is possible to live without TV. People do it. I love the story of über-agent Ari Emanuel and his client Larry David in New Hampshire just before last year's big primary. Ari introduces his niece Gaby, a Dartmouth undergrad, to David. There is no glimmer of recognition.
"What do you do?" Gaby says.
Larry David says, "Well, I was the writer and creative force behind Seinfeld."
Gaby says, "And what was Seinfeld?"
Gaby's father, Zeke Emanuel, later told Washingtonian magazine that he’s never had a TV in his home. “It’s one of the greatest things I ever did,” he said.
Ten years ago, on an extended visit to Japan, my wife and I saw the future, and it was a very disturbing sight indeed. TV screens were everywhere -- jumbo screens all over Tokyo, large flatscreen TVs in shop windows and restaurants, tiny TV screens on phones, even TV goggles. Wim Wenders warned us all about "the disease of images" in his 1991 film Until the End of the World. Now it's actually happening. We are saturating our lives with moving video images.
For my next birthday, I want one of those TV-B-Gone remotes.
I agree: Any sort of unthinking orthodoxy is not a good thing. If my words gave you the impression of a knee-jerk response, I wasn't being careful enough. I spent many years and a couple of books writing about how various tools and technologies help shape our thinking. And while it's absurd to say that one tool is good while another is bad, I do believe that particular tools come with their own powerful influences that we'd be wise to pay close attention to. You've heard this before, I'm sure: A person with a pencil will tend to see the world as a series of observations he can write down. A person with a still camera will tend to see the world as a series of potential still images. Etc. It doesn't mean tools can't be used in thoughtful ways, but it does mean that we should constantly be striving to use the right tool at the right time. Cellphones aren't inherently bad -- they're marvelous in so many ways. But that portable ring is a very powerful thing: look at what they're doing to families and good friends in parks and restaurants. Look at how a cell call can help transform a perfectly decent person into an obnoxious idiot who is telling a whole coffee shop about his bad marriage.
Video screens can convey great, nuanced, meaningful stories. I agree. But they also have a hypnotic power over our attention, and I think their rising ubiquity is one of the worst things about our emerging world. A tv is a sports bar is one thing -- that's what a sports bar is all about; but TVs screens in cafes, lobbies, parks, waiting rooms, etc? In my view, they tend to intrude on people's thoughts and conversations. It's not enough to say "no one's forcing you to watch," because sometimes the screen is on and we really don't have a choice. Other times, people turn it on and leave it on out of habit; and maybe a small nudge from a crank like me will help them think twice about doing that.
Douglas Rushkoff has talked a lot about how we should teach media literacy in schools, and I strongly agree.
Posted by: David Shenk | June 15, 2009 at 07:47 AM
I take your point, and appreciate your response. I just don't understand the normative attitude that says "TV = bad."
Maybe it's a generational thing, but the near-religious belief that, among a certain generation, TV is evil, is itself inaccurate, unhelpful, and distracting. TV's just a medium. Are airwaves Evil, then, and pulped trees Good? Who then shall henceforth be in charge of mediating the manner in which our stories may be received Respectably?
Posted by: CJ Alexander | June 15, 2009 at 06:04 AM
Thanks for your comment, CJ. I sincerely meant what I said about more quality, and more choice. I don't think it's a contradiction to celebrate quality but also ask people to reconsider how much time they spend watching.
- David
Posted by: David Shenk | June 14, 2009 at 11:27 PM
I find this whole attitude tiresome, too. Beyond the's brief, grudging hand-wave in the direction of "excellent TV out there" — notice how it's still kept at a distance — this is exactly how our parents used to sound. And they were right, until recently, when TV was mostly a source of anesthetization rather than real artistic boundary-pushing (see Clay Shirky on the excellent parallels between gin during the industrial revolution and sitcoms during the '50s-'80s: http://www.socialcustomer.com/2008/05/clay-shirky-on.html).
But as a writer, David, I'd think you'd be supportive of the flourishing landscape that TV has recently provided for excellent writing. The center of gravity for great storytelling in Hollywood has long since moved from movies to TV (I'd say "the small screen," but many of them are pushing 50" these days). The proliferation of cable channels has led to some daring artistic choices, like the use of serial-arc narratives over the course of a full season. When you can tell a story for 13 or 24 hours instead of just two or three, you can breathe a lot more life into the characters; a lot more subtlety into the plot; a lot more complexity into the narrative.
Good writing is good writing. Complaining about the medium itself is literally pointless; it's the refuge of the curmudgeon. Does the exact same story become "better," in a normative sense, simply because it's shown in an arthouse cinema or on a theater stage instead of on television? Of course not.
"We'd all be better off if we watched a lot less." Speak for yourself. It's a part of the human condition, traceable at least to Homer, that we like to be told stories. If it takes dreck on TV like "Two and a Half Men" to get network executives to also give us The Wire, Mad Men, The Sopranos, Deadwood, Lost, Dexter, Rome, Rescue Me, etc. etc. then so be it. Nobody's forcing us to watch anything we don't want to. And frankly, we don't need to hear you whine about what other people are watching, either.
Posted by: CJ Alexander | June 14, 2009 at 09:18 PM
Defining yourself in terms of something you *don't* know is a strange status game. Why is it good not to have heard of Seinfeld?
Posted by: gabe | June 13, 2009 at 10:29 AM