This week’s Thirteen (after a long hiatus)… from blogging in general… is on why I can’t stand television.

Thirteen Reasons I Don’t Watch TV

1. It’s a huge waste of time. The average american spends some 4 hours a /day/ watching TV. That’s 2 solid months of television watching. Imagine everything you’re missing out on. A good many people who claim they have no personal, private time, no time to enjoy their hobbies, no time to do this, do that, etc. spend several hours a night watching TV. No time? Since when?
2. Most [but not all] television shows are neither educational nor interactive. Most require no thought - only for you to sit and allow other people’s stories, images, and words fill your brain. With television, you don’t even have to imagine anything, or read a word on a page. It’s all right there in front of you. Turn on the tv, turn off your brain. There’s no need to think tonight!
3. Television cuts down on family time. Hard to have a conversation while you’re busy trying to find out what happens to the characters of your favorite shows. Harder, still, to play a game or partcipate in a project.
4. Most of the prime time shows I’ve seen are JUNK. Sheer junk.
5. Television destroys the imagination. If you’re accustomed to everything being right in front of your eyes and pouring into your ears, you do lose the capability of having an imagination of your own.
6. Television can dictate your schedule - sorry, can’t do that, Grey’s Anatomy is on tonight. Nope, nope, The Ghost Whisperer is on /that/ night. Hurry up and eat - we’ve gotta watch House!
7. Paid advertisements. Nearly a third of every half hour of programming is paid advertisements. Are we being good little consumers today?
8. Using the television as background noise gives me a headache. And are we really so afraid to hear our own thoughts?
9. It’s expensive. In a day when most families are in debt up to their ears and struggling to make ends meet, television is strangely one of the last things to ‘go’ in order to free up finances, despite most Americans spending $30-$60 a month on it.
10. It’s mind-numbing. This goes along with destroying the imagination. There isn’t any time to think for yourself when you’re too busy letting other people’s ideas fill your head. If you watch mostly fictional sitcoms and dramas and game shows, you’re not even gaining ideas, so much as passing entertainment. It shelters you from the world outside, from gathering opinions from others, from forming your own, from learning new skills and even enhancing your social network.
11. It’s harmful to children. For all the reasons stated above, and then some. It promotes ADD and ADHD. It inhibits children’s abilities to think and do things for themselves, entertain themselves. It lower grades and promotes laziness.
12. Reality TV is sick, sick, sick. I’m not talking about Discovery Channel, but all of those reality shows. What is the world COMING to?
13. The news media sensationalizes everything, and skews it out of control just to get ratings. Depressing, depressing, depressing.

Links to other Thursday Thirteens!

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