Abandoning television is a serious step in today’s society. Television is both a fantastic resource and a faceless attacker of wealth. It has the ability to inspire and the ability to depress. It can make you happy and scare you to death, it can inform and educate, but it can also help you waste your most precious resource: time. That’s just one reason I’ve decided to abandon most television shows.
Before I discuss why I am choosing to abandon television, let me say that not all television shows are bad. I don’t disparage anyone who choses to use their time watching parents change the diapers of their youngest child (of 27), or watching someone completely disrespect another person because of the t-shirts she chooses to wear, or watching a talk show host give marriage advice to a couple when the host has never been married. There are some great shows on various channels that help you better understand the world and help you learn valuable information that will improve your life. But those shows are the exceptions. What passes as entertainment and enlightenment today is an utter joke. So, I’ve made the decision to severely restrict the amount of time I waste in front of “the tube.” TV has abandoned most of what I think is important so here’s 5 reasons I have decided to return the favor and abandon television:
Reason #1. Television has abandoned understanding. Though there is a wealth of information available via the tube, for the most part, the information you gather via television is devoid of deep understanding. What is more important is drama, excitement, and the illusion that it projects. If you want to get a completely skewed view of the world, do nothing but watch television and form your opinions only based on its shallow information. Where else can someone get shot 14 times, fall off a building from 3 stories, get up and drive in a car chase, crash the car, then jump into a helicopter and fly it to some exotic island with an Italian supermodel?
Reason #2. Television has abandoned responsibility. News programs depict the crying children of famines and wars, the bodies that lie exposed to the elements and wild animals, the human devastation of a terrible natural disaster, then cut away to a commercial. “Now this.” Now that we took you to the edge of an emotional cliff, now that we’ve exposed the most horrible of human conditions, now that we’ve talked (briefly) about an intense tragedy, we want to make sure you see our commercials! Then we’ll just go merrily along to the next story after briefly shaking our heads. Now on to sports.
