They’re everywhere: restaurants, doctors’ waiting rooms, banks, beauty shops, airport terminals, and grocery store check-out lines. They’ve even invaded public restrooms.
No matter where I go, I can’t seem to escape televisions.
Specifically, televisions tuned to news channels, sports updates, or E!
While I waited to check out at Albertson’s the other day I had to listen to advertisements for Swifter and Hamburger Helper. I went into the restroom at Red Robin a few weeks ago and there was a five-inch TV mounted to the ceiling. I guess they’d installed it so that we wouldn’t miss one minute of ESPN Classic. Why bother? I mean, it’s not like these sports events haven’t been on before.
As much as I dislike the talking heads, there is one thing that’s worse: the infomercial masquerading as a news show. My last dentist had a two televisions in his waiting room, playing an endless loop of a news-style program about dental problems and diseases. Not what I want to see when I’m about to get my teeth x-rayed.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m not totally against TV. Right now, I’m thrilled that Bones is back on the air, which, by the way, has some of the funniest dialogue I’ve heard in ages. But I don’t want to be force-fed news, sports, and celebrity news 24/7. There’s nothing wrong with silence.
Does anyone else miss silence?
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When at all possible, esp. doctors’ offices, I firmly explain that my children are not allowed to watch TV and ask them to turn it off. I’ve been known to do it myself, ‘though receptionists tend to have cows. It’s a mystery to me that studies saying how bad TV is for kids come out about every 20 min. and no one seems to study how bad it might be for adults.
But I think having TVs around makes me a more moral person, because I imagine spending the afterlife in the orange plastic chair of a cigarette-smoke-filled Jiffy Lube waiting room, where the daytime TV is 4 ft. away at maximum volume and the 400 lb. man in the chair next to me is chewing gum with his mouth open. Believe me, I repent.
by Cynthia
on March 21st, 2007 at 9:14 am
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Cynthia, that is too funny because I was in a Jiffy Lube waiting room yesterday. There wasn\’t a 400 lb. man next to me, but they did have a TV and guess what…Jiffy Lube has its own channel.
You\’d think someone would study the impact of TV on adults, wouldn\’t you? Maybe no one wants to know how bad the impact is.
by Sara
on March 21st, 2007 at 10:03 am
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Jiffy Lube has its own…..? I was so much better off before I knew that.
But more seriously, TVs in airports really tick me off because I ALWAYS read in airports, often books I bought for that purpose and wouldn’t ordinarily read. Better, I still read some of the authors I picked up in airports 15 yrs. ago, when that was the only time I read thrillers/mysteries. Even granting that the selection of books in most airports isn’t great, I think it would be bad for the industry for airports to become book-unfriendly. Consider just O’Hare airport—if only 10% of passengers buy a book there, that’s still a whopping number of books.
by Cynthia
on March 21st, 2007 at 10:31 am
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I’d be happier if they’d put on Hogan’s Heroes reruns in my dentist’s office. Who needs to hear again about how important it is to floss every day? (And who’s going to start flossing religiously just because of the infomercial?) I’m moving to the Outback. Wanna come?
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What gets really annoying is when you’re stuck in an airport because of a delay and have to hear the same half hour of news over and over again. It only accentuates how stuck you are. Kind of reminds me of GROUNDHOG DAY.
by Sara
on March 21st, 2007 at 12:16 pm
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The Outback sounds great, Regina. Count me in! I’ve always wanted to see Australia.
by Sara
on March 21st, 2007 at 12:16 pm
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I’m so glad someone else mentioned airports! I’ve been known to figure out where my departure gate is, then schlep around to find the nearest (in very relative terms, of course!) seating area might be that DOESN’T subject me to TV, and sit there. (Factoring in travel time back to the gate for boarding, of course.)
And I’ve turned off the TV in auto repair shop waiting rooms, too. Once even had a, shall we say firm, discussion with an attendant who was determined to turn the thing on even though I was the only customer sitting in the room! (And it was a separate room, so I wasn’t depriving any employees of their fix.) Sigh.
Congrats to Cynthia for watching out for her kids that way - that’s exactly the sort of thing my mother would have done, had TVs been so prevalent then.
by Kate
on March 21st, 2007 at 8:27 pm
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I wish I could tune out the TV, Kate, but I guess I’m too easily distracted! 
by Sara
on March 21st, 2007 at 8:36 pm
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