Idiots Do Not Watch TV

I am not huge fan of TV, at least not any more.

In fact, renewal of our monthly TV subscription at mi casa is usually some sort of a tag of war with my people.

To put this in to perspective, it is the only monthly bill that I never budget for and whenever I do, it is purely for selfish reasons - you can bet there is almost always a fixtures pamphlet in the vicinity for reference, if you know what I mean.

This is because in terms of satisfaction it offers me the least ROI, both monetarily as well as psychologically.

But to my family’s consolation, I always ensure that Wi-Fi connectivity is available at all times though I doubt I succeed in sending the message across when I remind them that they are very privileged to be among the 55% of world’s population who have internet access.

The club is not really select as I would want it to sound, but it’s still way more exclusive than that of the number of households that own a TV set which stands at 79%!

Frankly, despite the handicaps that come along with the expansive internet space, I still prefer it when they determine in advance the perceived benefits they look forward to attaining. They are more likely to at least become programmers then than when they are glued to a TV program.

That’s my fatherly idea of them taking charge of their learning process which I can’t say confidently they truly appreciate.

I’m quite certain about that because when I was their age I would loath every moment an adult would pontificate on the matter; but then again they have Wi-Fi, so I still win. Ahem!

My TV is also nothing to write home about. Being over ten years old and working intermittently, it will rarely give you an assurance that you will finish watching a program without some sort of percussive maintenance in between.

Sometimes while watching a soccer match some players disappear when they reach at the top corner of the screen and re-appear wearing a different jersey colour, only for the original colour to be restored after some time. I don’t get it. My neighbourhood technician has ferried it to his workshop on several occasions for a closer scrutiny but the problem keeps on recurring. I think he is still investigating where the extra jerseys come from.  That just about sums up my enthusiasm as far as this family relic strategically positioned in almost every household today goes.

Committing yourself to life-long learning is one of the best habits of the seemingly successful individuals. The good old TV has spectacularly failed in this regard, and I’ll explain why shortly.

Simply put, my stand against watching too much TV is premised on its interactive impact on the user at the cognitive level.

The moment that particular program or TV presenter invades your living room, the control of the learning process is out of your hands, so to speak. The mind is literally programmed to absorb whatever is brought to the screen thereby reducing you to a passive participant rather than an interactive one. In the long run, it takes away the spark out of your spontaneity, originality and imagination.

And as we all know, the brain being like a muscle weakens with disuse and digital dementia only exacerbates it.

For an adult, it takes quite a while to reprogram their mind from tenets acquired since childhood including certain limiting beliefs. You can now imagine the effects of intentionally re-enforcing such and similar other beliefs on a daily basis on the mind through binge watching.

KBC Channel One

Every action or inaction has a consequence, so we have been told.

As a result of frequent defaults on our monthly subscriptions, we often go without the usual  channel package for long periods of time. Thankfully, our service provider begrudgingly leaves the National Broadcaster’s channel on for whatever reason. I would like to imagine it’s because he is cognizant of our right to information as espoused in our Constitution but I don't think he is that benevolent.

That said, I have become accustomed to this objective, informative and localised offering by The Kenya Broadcasting Corporation even when I have regularised my account.

KBC’s decision-makers appear a bit more sensitive to their viewers than these other profit-booking broadcasters.

The headlines in the latter’s  TV stations are usually like a competition as to who will shock as many viewers as possible with the gloomiest news imaginable more than a family setting can withstand.

For the better part of the news, the stories sound like Armageddon is about to spring right at your doorstep.

There’s a good reason why most successful people do not watch TV at all and neither are they concerned with staying updated with the current affairs unless it’s featuring them!

If it is not the gory details of some brutal murder, it is bloodshed, rape and defilement, suicides, clandestine matters, political brinkmanship and the like. They probably should just give parental guidance ratings during prime time news for viewer discretion.

The same thing happened during the hotly contested 2017 elections whereby our base nature came to the fore as we spewed hate against fellow countrymen (And then later wondered why our children were burning schools).

When it comes to TV commercials, these profit bookers’ sense of timing is sometimes totally misplaced if not sickening.

Theirs is almost a perfection of interruption marketing (as popularised by author Seth Godin) to describe those adverts which sort of intrude your personal space but have no consequence whatsoever. You just ignore them.

For instance, whoever said that a certain toilet detergent and its modus operandi must be aired right when you are in the middle of calming your hunger pangs is yet to wake up to the fact that none of us can really stomach (no pun intended) watching  that advert to the end.

Need I mention the advert of a certain brand of condoms that is getting raunchier by the day?

Sometimes due to the pressures of life, parents unknowingly or not, delegate their parenting role to the TV. Think about the number of times you have placed your kid in front of your TV so that you can clear some urgent house chores.

Leaving them at mercies of the TV producers and editors is akin to ushering the local drug peddler to your children’s rooms. Once they get used to it you'll require something else besides luck to help them disentangle from its effects.

We all know that the good news do not sell as well as the obnoxious ones, and our local TV producers seem to have an insatiable appetite for the latter.

Obviously lacking serious Social Scientists in their organograms, you’ll be amazed at these broadcasters’ brazen lack of appreciation of the prolonged effects of negative news on the mind in the long run. I don’t quite understand who taught them that only negativity can provide the necessary competitive edge.

Though most TV proponents would like to bring in the aspect of infotainment to the debate, the employment opportunities that the media offers to the creatives as well as the little matter of choice, our news channels, nonetheless  give us all the more reasons why should not to look forward to prime time news.

And that’s where KBC wins, my friends.

Responsible TV watching

I don’t know whether there is such as a thing as responsible TV watching though for the sake of argument, let’s just assume one does have some degree of control.

This is because research has shown that negative news is just as addictive as any drug and the broadcasters know that you will be looking forward to the next day’s prime time news for another fix. This is where the fourth estate misuse their oversight role.

Other than a few events of national interest broadcast live, I rarely notice I have a TV in my home. Well until I politely admonish my kids to make themselves useful other than spending a whole two hours in front of the disintegrating idiot box.

We have had several debates on the benefits of the Television or lack thereof which I always win (I have to because I pay for stuff around there, at least for now) and what worries me most in terms of their interaction with it is not even the contents of any particular program as such like the variety of the programs that they are exposed to.

You will agree with me that in this Digital Age, if you were to scan through the almost 200 channels available on satellite TV you wouldn’t miss something to watch for every single minute of the day – be it soap operas, sports, documentaries, music videos, sermons, movies, reality shows and the like.

Having said that, there’s enough research to occupy your free time for next one year regarding the negative impact of watching too much TV.

In children, it ranges from increased chances of one being overweight, displaying aggressive behaviour, indulging in risky behaviour such as smoking and promiscuity, reinforcing certain gender, ethnic and racial stereotypes and so on.

Young adults and pensioners can also die as a result of watching too much TV, and I’m not exaggerating here. The sedentary lifestyle nowadays made possible by the advent of TV series and online TV may cause fatal pulmonary embolism, according to a Japanese Collaborative Cohort Study conducted over a period of 18 years.

Sitting is the new smoking; and that’s all one does when watching TV.

That said, you have a choice to either let an intruder bombard you and your family with what they think your mind needs, or you can take charge of your own entertainment and learning.

Let me conclude with a few suggestions from an article that I chanced upon by renowned paediatrician Elana Pearl Ben-Joseph, MD on how to lessen the impact of the inevitably intrusive media world on our children:

  a) Find alternative forms of self-entertainment such as reading and best of all participating in                  outdoor activities.
  b) Engage with the children by asking questions such as: “What do you like about that?",
     "Do you think it's really as good as it looks in that ad?" "Do you think that's a healthy                            choice?"
  c) Having them watch public television stations (some of their programs are sponsored — or                    "brought to you" — by various companies, although the products they sell are rarely shown)                Thank you very much, Daktari!
  d) Recording programs without the commercials, muting the TV during commercial time to ask              your child questions about the program
  e) Streaming their favourite programs, or buying or renting DVDs
  f) By setting healthy limits on screen time and knowing what your child is doing at all times,

As peak memory expert Jim Kwik once said, ‘’When you use technology, it becomes the tool; but when technology uses you, you become the tool.’’

Don’t let the TV use you.