Idiot box? I’m not sure where I heard the term, but that’s what someone in my life called a television. As long as I can remember, we’ve had television. That isn’t surprising since in the year I was born, 1960, 87% of households in the United States had a TV. The first one I remember was a large black and white console television. If you wanted to change the station, you got up and turned the dial. There was no channel surfing; it wouldn’t have been much fun since we only had three channels. In those early years, the main thing I remember is we had cartoons for kids on Saturday mornings. I would sometimes watch sports on weekend afternoons. The weekdays seemed to be dominated by soap operas. The only one that interested me was one with vampires called ‘Dark Shadows.’ I think many kids had a nightmare or two from watching that show.
As time went on, there were milestones. We eventually got a color television. Things expanded a bit when we got Channel 17, now known as TBS. I think all their shows were re-runs of old ones, but we watched many of them. Shows like The Andy Griffith Show, I Love Lucy, Leave It To Beaver, and Green Acres – a show that poked fun at city people who moved to the country. None of those shows were new, but I guess they were new to us. If you got out of bed promptly, you could start your day with educational programming like The Little Rascals or The Three Stooges.
When Cheryl and I married, we moved into married housing at the University of Georgia. We had a 13-inch black and white TV, but we did have cable for the first time in our lives. I started watching a new all-sports network that had just started called ESPN. They had a lot of boxing, Australian Rules Football, and not much else. I wondered, along with other sports fans, if they would make it. But I guess they’re doing alright.
After getting jobs, we bought a beautiful 26-inch color console TV for around $600. When we moved to Zebulon late last year, our TV was too big for the built-in TV spot in our living room. So, we bought a smaller 43-inch TV for less than $300. TVs may be the one thing that’s still cheaper than it was in the old days, even without considering inflation.
Of course, you don’t need a TV anymore. You can watch programming from your computer, a tablet, or a cell phone. With hundreds of channels and other streaming services, you can watch just about anything at any time from anywhere. Gone are the days when a family had to agree on what to watch, and everyone watched it together.
I remember when television was controversial because people feared it took too much time away from more important things, and it sometimes had an unhealthy effect on the culture. The points were valid. We spent a lot of time outside as children, and maybe short periods of mindless entertainment were not so bad. But the scales have tipped way too far. We could all use a little less screen time and a little more time outside with things not created by man.
“Life today, for most of us, most of the time, is a mediated existence. Our experiences are vicarious, or virtual. Most of what we know comes from media, not personal experience…
Think about it. How many waking hours did you spend yesterday totally isolated from all media? That means no TV, radio, music CDs or tapes, computer screens, print, or advertising signs. Were there any? If you fall asleep listening to the radio or TV, the media invade even more than your waking hours.”
– Nicholas Johnson, “Media Literacy,” 1997