Will you turn the TV off and TALK TO ME!!

Watching TV (Courtesy The Telegraph)

We watch a lot of TV. Figures from the Broadcasters’ Audience Research Board in the UK shows most people accross the pond watched more than 30 hours of television a week. I reckon you can apply those figure here too. That’s 65 days of TV watching a year. Holy Ghost that’s 12.5 years in a lifetime. Home entertainment is big business, in 2010 the Home Entertainment Industry saw sales of 18.9bn in the UK, eraltd.org. Most of this spend is attributed to entertainment in the living room.

In my opinion that’s way too much time in front of the goggle box. Yes I sell TVs and I install them, I advise people about what I think is the best way to spend their money on Home Technology, what products to consider, what the specification on the sales brochure means etc so why would I want to discourage anyone from watching TV as much as they please? Well, I’m not trying to discourage, only to make others aware too much of anything is a bad thing, ever hear that one before?

I love gadgets and the latest technology, my house is full of it and well its how I make my living too. It’s just most of the information that we receive via the TV and other media, whether we want to believe it or not, shapes our opinion of the world around us and if we are not concious that the information is just the opinion of the broadcaster or those who influence the broadcaster then we become controlled and manipulated. When used too much it takes from what should be valuable interaction between families, interaction that is extremely valuable in forming strong viable worthwhile relationships with our children and spouse. Recently I have found myself too often switching on the TV for the kids in the evening just to keep them quiet, because I found their running around making noise and being children too difficult to handle after my “hard day’s work”. I even found myself doing it by default when they are not being loud or disruptive to me. Wouldn’t my children and I be better served if I sat with my kids on the floor for 30 mins and played what ever game they wanted  to play and find out how they got on today in playschool, what they did, who they played with etc. What if I showed some genuine interest in my children’s day rather than go through the motions of plonking them in front of the TV until dinner was ready, pause the TV while eating dinner (live pause is great), play TV until bedtime and then up to bed? Ye I reckon I would.

I don’t watch much TV. If there is a game on or something specific or valuable to me then I would watch it. Lots of people in  my life such as my dad, my wife and others are addicted to watching nonsense on TV! E channel! Emmerdale! Coronation Street! Keeping up with the F***ing Kardashians! for crying out loud. Too many people concern them selves with the to’s and fro’s of other peoples lives and not enough time on themselves and others that they care about. These and other nonsense TV programs do nothing but numb your brain and distract you from what you should be doing to add value to your life. Get out for a run, a drink with your husband or wife, or just put on some music (using the Sonos System I installed for you) and have a chat. I would much rather put on a few tunes and talk with my wife than goo at the box talking sideways to her on the couch for 2 hours in the evenings.

I love technology and what it has provided us with. The Social Media revolution on the Internet has allowed people who have fallen out of touch or have never met to interact and share their lives and interests to an extent they they never could before. The creativity of human beings to come up with new and amazing devices is boundless in my view, just look how far technology and the human race have come in the last 100 years or so, and where will we be and what technology will we have in an other 100, or 50, or even 20 years? Technology is here to stay and people will continue to use it in their lives, my only hope is that we will not stray from what is a fundamental requirement of human beings which is to directly interact and think for our selves rather than allow our selves be influenced by information thrown at us in bucket loads from the TV and other media.

Take nothing for granted, always question and analyse, should you wish to be free and to really understand other people because our time here is very short, don’t spend it watching nonsense on TV.