04-03-2006

Kill Your Television

The West 116th Street blog has a great post on Why You Too Should Cancel Cable and stop watching TV altogether:

My hope is that there will be a massive social and cultural move away from television. The benefits of such a change will be tremendous. We will become smarter, more informed, and less prone to commercial manipulation. We will not stand for lies and misinformation from our government, we will take action and effect change. We will eliminate credit card debt, and pay off our mortgages faster. Our kids will eat more fruit and do better on standardized exams. We will become global participants, and won’t need to tell foreigners that we are Canadian when we visit their countries. We will use less oil. We will get to work on time. We will have better relationships with friends and family. We will make better music, write better books, and develop better software. Just for starters. Pardon my naïve optimism, but I really think that remarkable progress can be achieved very quickly, if you too decide to cancel cable.

Several years ago, I decided to go a year without watching TV. It permanently altered my television watching, to the point that I hardly watch any now. During my year without TV, I read the book Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television. One point that stuck with me from the book is that things we absolutely must have don’t require advertising:

Advertising exists only to purvey what people don’t need. Whatever people do need they will find without advertising, if it is available. . .

People do need to eat, but the food which is advertised is processed food: processed meat, sodas, sugary cereals, candies. A food in its natural state, unprocessed, does not need to be advertised. Hungry people will find the food if it is available. To persuade people to buy the processed version is another matter because it is more expensive, less naturally appealing, less nourishing, and often harmful. The need must be created.

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Posted by Matt in communication | RSS 2.0

One Response to “Kill Your Television”
  1. Irina Says:

    Thanks very much for the props. You write a very interesting blog, and I’ll be checking in often.

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