The Tyranny of TV Everywhere

Froma Harrop hit the nail on the head with her recent column.    She wrote, “I watch television, and I use it as a drug. Let no one call me a television snob. But let me also draw a line in the sandbox: Free humans should never have television forcd on them. this is happening more and more, and it gives me the creeps. I know others who feel likewise.

 
There’s no escaping TV. It’s in the doctor’s office, the gym and the jury-pool waiting room. It’s in the bar, whether there’s a game on or not. It’s at the airport, where CNN holds everyone hostage. Note how the monitors are carefully placed around the boarding areas so that no seat is beyond their grasp.  

Hospital waiting rooms are perpetually under television domination. The detainees may want to read, pray or listen to their own thoughts. They are not allowed to. Television must be watched.

 In a way, the TVs that blare at us wherever we go are worse than the telescreen in “1984,” George Orwell’s novel about totalitarian communism. In “1984,” Big Brother may have been watching you, but you didn’t have to watch him all day long.  

In this world of TiVo, Netflix and video iPods, we can supposedly watch exactly what we want, when we want it. That’s civilization. But the society that lets television hijack public spaces — that’s tyranny. Television should always be our servant, never our master. I fear it may be too late to save ourselves.

I couldn’t agree more!