Techno-Habituation

The TV is glaring and blaring out there in the other room.  Good.  I’ll stay here (a fugitive) with the door SHUT.

Why? I personally dislike television; it requires super-auditory effort because of my hearing loss (who wants to work that hard at an impossibility?).  Remember Woodstock?  And “wahwah-wah-waahwawawah…wawaWAH-wah-wah?”  THAT’S my dilemma. Also a large percentage of programs seem boring, degrading, or even terrifying rather than inspiring or edifying.  And news...well...let us say it is slanted toward sensationalism at best.  But on another level (down deep where it counts the most) the TV can destroy opportunities for real-live-personal-communication/interaction for hours at a time.  That adds up to days of missed relationship.   

My opinion? Chronic television-watching exiles a human brain into a captive realm of passive numbness.   A place where creativity shuts down.  Where things like violence and arrogance subliminally impale the heart.  Tsk tsk.  Seems a shame.

Yes, yes, I know there are many potentially good things about television (Mr. Rogers?  Alton Brown? National Geographic?  Oldies like Lassie and Leave it to Beaver?).  Not all TV shows are created equal.  Still, I’m grateful a door stands between us.  I simply shut and gently latch it, so as not to cause a commotion, and co-exist in isolation (is that an oxymoron?).  Every once in a while I open it to see if *that other person* reposing like a prone mannequin in the recliner is still breathing.  I also check to see if said person needs sustenance like a bowl of mint ice cream and a chocolate brownie….and then I shut the door again and return to my own sanctuary where I practice obsessing over my own techno-addiction: the computer.