Monday, April 22, 2002

Kill Your Television II
TV Turnoff Week starts today and runs through April 28. The current issue of Nature reports that teenagers who watch a lot of television are more apt to grow up to be violent adults. My guess is that it's not so much because they watch television but because they do so in lieu of other social activities with friends and family. Televisions don't socialize children; parents and other people do.

I'm not saying that it's OK to watch TV if you watch it with other people. I'm not even saying that it's not OK to watch TV at all. Heck, what am I saying? I don't even have cable, much less a TV antenna. And I throw a little rug over my TV so it doesn't collect dust (and so the demons in the box don't escape). I'm hardly a poster child for TV activism on either end of the spectrum. Yet I'd still like to see an episode of the Osbournes. I'm not encouraging copyright infringement, but if you'd like to send me a video tape of the Osbournes, my address is on the left. The tape will be used strictly for personal, archival, and research-oriented viewing. Of course.

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