“The same media people that claim violence on TV doesn’t influence people, are perfectly willing to sell you advertising time.” ~Author Unknown
Television. What a wonderful invention. We’ve all had our parents tell us it’ll turn our brains to mush and make our eyes turn square. Well, this morning, I realised that it does.
My three year old daughter and I were having breakfast with BBC news on the telly and I realised that my daughter was motionless, spoon halfway back to her bowl of cereal after depositing its load of rice snaps in her mouth, which were now melting rather than being chewed.
She normally needs a little reminder to carry on when she is watching her programs, Peppa Pig and Ballamory and such like, because I presumed she understood vaguely what was going on. After all, they are aimed at her age group.
But this was the news, about Lebanon and floods and exam results and that dumpy feller who goes on about the stock market (at 7 in the morning? Surely it couldn’t be much different from when it closed yesterday at 5?)
We’ve all done it, though. Sat in front of the telly all evening watching stuff that doesn’t interest you, looking at the TV listings, repeating the mantra “There’s sod all on telly again tonight”, whilst flicking channels in the hope that the schedule’s been changed without any previous mention on the channel at all.
Sitting in a pub, there’s a telly on in the background, usually a portable on a hanger in the corner somewhere and your attention keeps getting caught by it, even though you don’t like the program, even though you can’t here what is being said, your eyes keep getting dragged back to it.
Why is that? Why can’t we not watch TV?
“Imagine what it would be like if TV actually were good. It would be the end of everything we know.” – Marvin Minsky
Got the title quote from here somewhere
Labels: Odds and Sods
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