Recently,
one of the readings I was doing with my IELTS class talked about television
addiction. (The reading is online—[LINK HERE]. The article is an excerpt from an article which appeared in the Scientific American. The whole article is not available online for free, but you get the idea from this excerpt. Interesting that in the last paragraph they start to go into some of the physical reasons why TV might be addictive.)
If there is
such a thing as television addiction, then I have definitely got it.
The irony
is that, on an intellectual level at least, I agree with all the arguments
commonly advanced against TV.
* I believe
that TV is turning my brain into mush, and that I would be much better spending
all those hours reading instead.
* I have
read the research that hours spent inactive in front of the TV screen is a
leading cause (possibly the leading
cause) of obesity, heart disease, diabetes, et cetera.
* I agree
with the premise of Bowling Alone (W)—that
television has destroyed socializing and the old social networks that people
used to build back with their neighbors.
* I agree
with Chomsky and others who argue that all the time spent watching television
and on the Internet causes people not to become involved in actual political
activism.
* And, more
than anything, I just worry that it’s sucking my life away. That I’m going to get old and have no real
memories of my own. That I should be out
having adventures, meeting new people, dancing with pretty girls and living
life to the fullest instead of just zoning out in front of my TV every night.
And yet,
even though I have all these intellectual reasons why I know I shouldn’t be
watching TV, I end up giving into the temptation night after night. First I give into the temptation to turn it
on, and then, once it’s on, I can never seem to pull myself away.
I’ve tried
to deal with this in various ways over the years. My first apartment in Japan, I ended up giving my TV away.
I hadn’t
wanted to do this at first, because it was admitting that I had no self control. I would have rather mastered my self control—to
have the ability to keep a TV in my apartment, but the self discipline not to watch
it.
But, after
2 years of failing to control myself, I acknowledged I did not have self
discipline, and I had to get rid of the TV.
(The final straw came when I realized I was turning down social
invitations because I couldn’t seem to pry myself away from the TV at night.)
I did all right
without a TV for the most part, but there were evenings when I felt like a
junky jonesing for
a hit. There were some nights when I
finished work and I felt like I just absolutely had to sit down and watch
something on a screen—like it was some sort of biological physical necessity.
I actually
had to keep reminding myself that my ancestors lived for thousands of years
without TV, and that they still managed to live happy lives--that television actually wasn’t a physical
necessity for the human condition, even though it seemed like it.
I tried to
fill my apartment with books instead, but reading just didn’t hit the same
switch. Reading doesn't offer the complete passive absorption
that television does. Reading forces me to use my mind, rather than
turn it off. I can read to kill time for
30 minutes or so, but I can’t read sit still and just read for hours and hours
like I can with a television screen.
When I
changed cities and moved to Gifu, I continued living without a TV and intentionally never bought a
new TV for my new apartment.
However in Gifu there was a movie
theater within walking distance from my house.
Of course I
didn’t abuse the movie theater quite as much as I would have abused a TV, but I
would go there at least once a week to get my weekly fix of moving images. (The late show—starting at 9pm—was only about
$10 at the time.)
During that
time I saw all sorts of horrible movies, such as Devilman just for
the sake of watching something, anything.
So I still
got my TV fix in other ways, but not having a TV in my apartment ultimately
meant the addiction was much more contained.
Alas, that
couldn’t last forever. For one thing, we
are now living in an age where a computer and an Internet connection are essentially the same thing as having a TV in your house. Everything you can watch on television you
can watch on the Internet. And what are
you going to do about that? I mean, you
can’t get ride of your computer. You can’t
disconnect from the Internet. You need
those.
Well, I
tried. Here in Cambodia,
I deliberately did not connect Internet to my apartment. (My co-workers think I’m crazy, but I get all
my Internet fixes either at work or from Internet cafes.)
My
landlords supplied me with a TV. I couldn’t get rid of it because it came with
the apartment and I didn’t own it. But I
tried hard to resist the temptation. And
when I couldn’t resist the temptation, I tried other things. I would lock the remote control in my desk at
work (only to find myself manually changing channels hours later). I would disconnect the wires (only to find
myself reconnecting them.)
Whatever
television addiction was, I had got it bad.
I was jonesing for a fix of television every night. I didn’t want to read. I didn’t want to go out with friends. I wanted to turn my mind off and watch TV.
Some
nights, I would watch whatever was on, just for the sake of watching something.
The cable
package my landlords have in Cambodia
include only a handful of channels in English, of which the only two that have
regular programming are StarWorld Asia and AXN Asia. Both are based out of Singapore, and both just show constant junk: The Voice, The Glee Project, Jane by Design,
Masterchef, CSI, CSI Miami. But the sad thing was, I kept watching them. I even found myself recounting the plot of Jane By Design to my co-workers during
lunch breaks. “You see, she’s a high
school student, but she’s also a fashion designer, but no one knows she is
leading this double life, so she still has all the drama of her high school
life, plus all the drama of her fashion life.”
At this point they told me they had lost all respect for me.
Also, even
though I had not connected Internet at my apartment, my computer still had a
DVD player in it. And Cambodia is the
land of cheap pirated DVDs.
Walking
into any DVD shop in Cambodia
(and there are DVD shops on just about every corner in Phnom Penh) is like being a kid in a candy
store. The normal price for DVDs is
$1.50 per disc. You can get a whole
season of a show for about $4.50. Box
sets that would normal run you hundreds of dollars back in the US are just a
few bucks here. TV shows that aren’t
even available yet on DVD in the US
are being sold in Cambodia. (Whoever is manufacturing these DVDs—from
somewhere in China
I’m told, just tapes them straight from television and onto DVD.) The whole season of Game of Thrones was available on DVD here just days after the last episode
aired.
And I
regret to say, I’ve wasted a lot of my life the past year watching DVDs. After I discovered The Wire, I spent whole weekends just lying on my couch. A three day holiday weekend (when I should
have been on the beach) I spent just watching Arrested Development.
It’s
pathetic, I know. Every night, as I go
to sleep, I tell myself From tomorrow, I’m
going to get a life and stop watching TV all the time. And everyday, I find myself slipping back
into the same patterns.
I take some
comfort in the fact I don’t seem to be unique.
Many of my co-workers will also tell me they spent the whole weekend working
through a box set of some show or another.
On the
other hand, the fact that everyone is doing this also scares me a bit. Is this the future of the human race? Are we all headed towards a future where people
work during the week, and then just watch stuff on screens in the weekend.
And what is
it about TV? Why is it so
addictive? Why can’t I seem to keep it
off?
Anyway, a
few years back, I got the idea that I would cut down on the amount of movies I
watched by starting up a Movie Review Blogging Project. Every movie I watched, I would make myself
write up a movie review on the blog. No
exceptions. (Well, one exception. Rewatching movies I’d already seen didn’t
count. But any new movie experience
demanded a new review.)
My purpose
in doing this was 2 fold.
1). It gave
me an excuse to give out more of my opinions about stuff on this blog (I’m addicted to blogging, and so love sharing my thoughts on
everything.) and
2) I hoped
it would cause me to cut down on the amount of movies I watched. If I knew every movie I watched today would
mean a blog entry I had to write tomorrow, I’d be inclined to waste a lot less
time watching movies.
And
actually, this has worked relatively well.
The amount of movies I’ve watched since I started this project has
dropped dramatically. But the amount of
TV shows I have watched has risen.
Due to the
rise of the serialization TV format, we’re living in an age now where
television is becoming more interesting than movies anyway—for better or for
worse. (Better for my entertainment purposes, worse in fighting my addiction.)
And because
I’ve lived in Asia so long, and because I’ve lived without a TV for so much of this
time, I had not seen many of the hot shows of the past 10 years, so there was a
lot of catching up to do.
Again, I’m
not proud of all of this time spent in front of the TV. I wish I had the willpower not to watch so
much TV.
But since I
have watched it already, I’m going to go ahead and blog about it, and give some
of my thoughts on the various TV shows that have taken over my life.
I’m not
going to blog everything I’ve watched, but I’ll try and catch the highlights.
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