I had an interesting face to face conversation recently.
Speaking with an acquaintance, another young man similar in age, we spoke on a subject I rarely get to in person, but know exists due to seeing it online :
No television.
We had a conversation about no television and putting smartphones down.
A discussion about not being slave to the electronics, and instead living life, a real life, in real life as intended.
I spoke of my memory from 18 or 19 years old of being seated with my father and grandmother at a table next to one where a tall hot athletic brunette maybe a year older than me was with her grandpa, but playing with her iphone exclusively, not once looking up at her grandpa for the half hour we were next to them, as he genuinely cared, asking her about her classes and what not.
How I hated seeing that dynamic. Her grandpa was the same age mine WOULD’VE been at the time, only I hadn’t had mine for 4-5 years at that point, while she wasn’t making the most of those minutes.
“There but not there”, he commented.
“Exactly, with family but not truly with them”, my reply.
He spoke of being horrified to see a buddy’s kid have no activities, just screen time. The only thing the kid wants to do being xbox or playstation.
I told him how looking back I’m thankful to my father for moving us from SoCal to New England.
I spent some of my childhood outdoors at wiffle ball, football, shoveling snow, and mowing grass because of this move, and am grateful for it.
Yes I put far too many hours into a playstation, but I look back and
compare it to my buddy out west who basically lost his soul to antidepressants while seated indoors at an xbox in SoCal suburbia.
Dad, thank you.
We both have noticed that full time labor naturally brings us down to zero screen time.
What’s gonna give?
Most prioritize a part time television requirement over everything but their job.
Family? Friendships? Exercise? Making more money? Nah, there’s programming to be viewed.
Fuck that, a job you hate, and television that robs you of everything?
There’s weights to lift, pushups to do!
We all have our priorities.
It can be downright hilarious to not only live in the real world, but snap others into it as well.
Many really are addicts to their electronic devices.
Our grandparents viewed the television as the cool new thing.
Our parents had one from birth.
Hour upon hour viewing devolving into being the norm by my generation.
That laid the groundwork for my generation and younger (and ridiculously older) being iphone addicts.
If you reader are younger than me you can add an extra generation to all the above, as as I write I recall the first kid I knew my age to have a kid, well that kid’s kid is a middle schooler now.
I said something in the work truck about a year and a half back which my coworker told me was profound :
“It’s a law of the universe ; everything, for us it’s electronics, has the potential to be the most useful or most damaging tool to us, a positive or a negative. It’s all in how we direct our usage of the thing.
Many are addicts to their television programs, their video games, to porn, or to compulsively checking facebook, while at the same time in your pocket, and in my lunchbox right now is our individual access to the world’s most complete library.
I choose to learn foreign languages with mine, as more recently porn and video games precedingly were problems when I didn’t use what is only a tool properly.”