When I first began telling people I don’t watch television, the reaction was amusing. They reacted with surprise, as though it were an extreme lifestyle choice. Their skeptical reaction was greater than if I had announced a plan to give up soda or meat. In one instance someone actually asked, “If you don’t watch television, then what do you do?”

The answer, insulting as it may sound, is simple. I don’t imagine living like fictional characters on television. I don’t respond to the constant desire for new gadgets or things I supposedly “need.” It sounds elitist and self righteous, I know, but now I spend more time thinking in one day than I did in several as a TV addicted child, even when I had seven hours of schoolwork on weekdays.

Television isn’t just another point in the pantheon of mediums. It’s fundamentally different than books, radio, and even movies, which are superficially similar, but relatively short. Few people watch two or three movies at a time, and certainly not very often.

Granted, I’m not the first person to argue that a new method of communication was dangerous. Socrates and Plato hated the alphabet and books because, to them, they represented the death of socialization as the primary tool for learning. Plato wrote:  Read More »