#32 TV or not TV

Among the many objectionable habits my teenagers have developed is the tendency to leave the TV on even if they are not watching it. It drives me crazy. On a number of levels. First because they are teenagers. If you’ve got one I’m sure you agree that teenagers are nature’s most effective form of birth control. When a teenager first appears in your home, the almost universal declaration is I ain’t never having another one of those. Of course by then it’s too late, cause you’re likely to have a few more in the queue.
So anyhow. The second reason I hate unwatched TV is the waste factor. Using a TV as a radio wastes power. Solid State radios burn virtually no power. Cathode Ray TV tubes consume like a gigawatt a minute. Power in the great Northwest comes from hydroelectric turbines. This year we’re in a drought. Wasting by not watching a TV wastes water. If you want to listen to something, I tell my kids calmly through clenched teeth, listen to the gol dang radio.
Thirdly, as a former TV producer I hate the fact these kids are wasting all those images. It takes a lot of work to put that crap on the air. It shouldn’t go out unseen. TV is a visual medium. That means you gotta watch it. It’s that old philosophical conundrum: If a mime is on TV and nobody watches, is he really there?
But no. My kids are from the multi-tasking generation. They can be surfing on the computer, instant messaging, talking on the wall phone, text messaging on their brother’s cellphone and have the TV on all at the same time. Monitor and TV. For those of you keeping track, that’s two, count em, two cathode ray tubes sucking the last reservoir dry while little Susie emails an emoticon to her next door neighbor.
A recent publication stated that today’s 13 to 20-year-olds manage to cram 8 hours of electronic media time a day into 6.2 hours. And they do it by multi-tasking. Although I would challenge the word “task.” Task seems too active. Except for the Instant Messaging part, their media “tasks” are largely passive, so I would say they are multi-receiving or engaged in multi-reception. My kid, the electronic multi-soaker-upper.
Society is doomed. Remember the multi-media guy in high school; the one who could never seem to load the film in the right direction? The one who got teased to within an inch of his non-sanctified by cheerleader society life? Was that Bill Gates? Is this his revenge? Thousands of our fading echo-boomers switching from medium to medium like little schizophrenic hummingbirds, unable to alight long enough to have four-sentence conversation, much less interact in a discussion group. They’re never going to be like their parents and fit in at a de-tox therapy session or an AA meeting. What’s wrong with these kids?
America, ya gotta love it.