Theos-Talk Archives (November 1995 Message tl00367)

Aki:

>I'm quite against TV and Mass-Media personally....

Some comments on TV ...

Part of the argument against TV is that there is a limited selection of
programming so that one is "forced" to watch a poor show since nothing
else is on. This is gradually going away. There's a 18 inch RCA digital
satellite receiver available for $600 that allows for potentially hundreds
of shows to pick between. The selection will rapidly widen over the
coming years as more channels open up on cable and satellite TV.

The quality of the programming is fairly low and not intellectually
challenging although on my local cable TV the Discovery channel has
good shows on science. And there's even a good hour-long news show on
science on CNN. Sunday's show which I listened too while watching
my 13-month-old and trying to work on some computer stuff for the T.S.
talked about an unique form of sense perception. This sense perception
involves a mixed experience of the senses. Someone hears colors or
smells sounds. The perception is considered more primal than our
sorted-out perception; it happens before the experience is broken
apart into sights sounds smells etc. It most often occurs with
respect to things like having colors associated with letters or numbers
where the person always *sees* the color with the letter or number.
I wonder if this is where we get the tradition of a sound color
taste smell etc. associated with numbers letters and people as
well? Perhaps Don D. has more information on this phenomena?

Coming back to TV ... Another argument against TV is the state of
passivity that the viewer is in. It may be so if the viewer is tired
and wanting a temporary fantasy to relax and escape the rush of life
for a few minutes. The sense of escape is the same as in reading a
good work of fiction excepted there is less challenge on the mind
of the TV viewer.

TV though does not have to be challenging if one is using it
for "background noise" while we're really doing something else.
In my case on I'm half-way watching the TV and working
on the computer at the same time. And the baby Geoffrey is
somewhat watching talking to me in his baby talk and playing
with his toys. Cartoons capture his attention more readily but
grown-up shows offer a stream of talking that may help his
language skills? This is of course in addition to his family
talking to him not instead of such talking.

-- Eldon