Beware of Screens Part II

I haven't seen the “Kill your television” bumper sticker/t-shirt in a long time. I haven't seen the “Theater is life, film is art, TV is furniture” in a long time either. Perhaps TV is passe. Who knows? The two things I do know are that there are more TVs than I can count in every bar and restaurant I go in and I see at least two to three old TVs on the street or sidewalk or alley every day.

Those statements like “Kill your TV” or “TV is furniture” for some reason don't seem to apply anymore. Maybe it's because they were a Gen-X thing when Gen-X was still in rebellion. Of course, in our youth Gen-X wanted to kill TV because TV was never for us, but for the generation before us, The Baby Boomers, who I suspect made the TV as big as it was in both size and importance.

You don't need me to tell you that TV is bad, but does it still need to be so invasive?

Have you noticed that TVs have gotten bigger but the smaller screens seem to captivate more attention? It seems like everyone is staring into one of these little screens. I went to a bar last week, late night, with my friend Savannah. We had just come off a long night at work and wanted a refreshing libation. The particular bar we went to is the only one in our neighborhood open late. It also has at least fifty TVs and they're all playing different things. Upon entering the bar at that late hour, there were at least a half a dozen patrons scattered in groups of ones and twos. Everyone was looking into their own personal screens. No one seemed to pay attention to the TVs.

I don't get it. I never have.

After I left my parents house, back in 1990, I never had a TV of my own. It's been almost 30 years. I have never wanted a TV because just looking into one really raises my blood pressure. It's a physical sensation of ill-ease and sickness rather than an intellectual one. So, I suppose I'm both very lucky and very unlucky with my relationship with TV.

I do not have a smartphone. Again, I'm not a Luddite, just like TV I have no interest in one. The cellphone I do have can send a text, and it can receive and make calls. I get very little of either. I get, on average, two or three calls a week, I do text, only reluctantly.

I bring it up only because I wonder what, if any, the connection between TV and Smartphones might be? For instance, if I grew up around TV and really loved being in front of it, would I have a dependence on a Smartphone?

Don't let me seem like I'm above any of it. I have a computer and I have the Internet. I have Youtube. But I limit my exposure to it. If you are reading this, you're reading it on a screen. I uploaded this blogpost from a Word Document. I used a computer to process this. However, I wrote (or I am writing) the initial draft in a composition notebook with a fountain pen in my terrible cursive handwriting.

Screens. Who cares?

Well, I do. And I think you should.

Staring into a screen, I've been told, is watching someone else's imagination at work. And no matter what you watch, it will eventually end, pass or otherwise go on.

If watching a screen is watching someone else's imagination, where is the imagination of the viewer?

I know where my imagination is and I know that I am actively engaged with it at all times. I refuse to let a screen come between me and my imagination. And with my imagination intact, I can concentrate on single thoughts, mental images or words. I do not let anything think for me.

I have a phone, I have a computer, occasionally I'll drink in a bar with TVs. I'm not above it.

But the real question here, very simply: do you think screen life has taken our imaginations and concentration?