T.V.O.D.

I used to be a TV addict. Not once, but twice.

When I was a kid, I'd get home from school, plop down on the couch and veg in front of the tube for hours on end. Today I have little to show for those hours other than an encyclopedic knowledge of "Barney Miller."

In college I did not own a TV, making it easy to go cold turkey and break the addiction.

Unfortunately, after college I shared an apartment with a roommate and her TV. My addiction picked up where it left off. I'd get home from work, plop down on the couch and veg in front of the tube for hours on end.

When I was addicted, I had my favorite shows. Lots of them. But at some level I didn't care whether anything good was on. I would just sit inertly glued to whatever the TV gods chose to offer me that day. The lyrics to The Normal's "T.V.O.D." aptly describe my state:

I don't need a
TV screen
I just stick the aerial
Into my skin
Let the signal
Run through my brain
T.V.O.D.

The year I started grad school something very felicitous happened. I got swamped with work. I had little time to eat and sleep, let alone veg in front of a TV. After a few months of this, I lost track of what was happening on my favorite shows and, more importantly, I had no idea what was on TV anymore. As I watched less and less, I wanted to watch less and less. Today I can go weeks without watching TV. When I do watch TV, I never binge on it -- I watch just what I wanted to watch, then I turn it off.

What accounts for my recovery? I didn't become a better person. I didn't attend a 12-step program for recovering TV addicts.

Have you ever noticed how many TV ads are for other TV shows? TV spends a lot of time promoting itself in order to keep you in front of the TV. Assuming TV knows something about luring viewers, the more you watch the more you want to watch. It's a vicious cycle. Once you're on it, it's hard to get off.

If something forces you to stop watching TV, though, you stop viewing the incessant ads for other TV shows. As the TV's hooks recede from your skin, you become blissfully unaware of what you're missing. This is a virtuous cycle -- the less you watch, the less you care.

Through all this I have remained a regular viewer of "The Simpsons." My continued attachment to The Simpsons has left me somewhat vulnerable to network manipulation -- the other two shows I watch are "Malcolm in the Middle" and "Arrested Development," shows heavily promoted during The Simpsons and appearing after The Simpsons on Sunday nights.

I figure I'm safe from further backsliding, though. Most of the other shows advertised on Fox are so base and cringeworthy, I cannot imagine ever succumbing to them, even in my weakest moments.

Now that TV is a tiny part of my life, I can devote my time to much more valuable pursuits. Like vegging in front of my computer screen for hours on end while surfing the net.

Comments

[Alan Sullivan]

Plus ca change...

Does interactivity make surfing weblogs any less passive? Exercise for the brain and the fingers, at least.

Say, the comment window is wider than the text area of your bacon-strip blog, and my sentences are jumping back and forth. That's annoying. If you know how to do it, please make the comment window taller and narrower.

Best wishes for the new blog, and thanks for linking.

[Outer Life]

Thanks Alan. The wide comment window in the narrow blog strip seems to be a standard TypePad feature. Until I figure out how to fix it (assuming I can), we should view the glass as half full and have fun watching our sentences jump around the comment box.