Dumping The Tv?

[MissScripture]

[quote name='havok579257' timestamp='1292718403' post='2193388']
i wouldn't say your at the mercy of the newscasters since with the invention of cable tv, there is easily over 100 different news programs a day. i heard about the chili miners from the tv. the news shows i watched touched on the chili miners just about every day they were trapped.
[/quote]
But you can get all the same information off of the internet and then some without having to pay for cable.

[quote name='TeresaBenedicta' timestamp='1292721017' post='2193399']
For news?

Eh, I guess. Although I generally wouldn't want my children watching the news. If I had children, of course. I guess I don't consider news to be a family activity.
[/quote]
Agreed. The past two times my husband has turned on the news, it has been very depressing. It is definitely not something to which I would want to expose children!

[quote name='havok579257' timestamp='1292725272' post='2193407']
i guess i don't have such a cynical view of world events as you. to me, what goes on in washington and in my local government is important to me. how our candidiates are performing and what they are doing is important to me. what laws they are passing or trying to pass are important to me.

also to me, i don't think if i have seen one death or act of heroism, i have seen enough. refusing to acknowledge what happens in the real world, to me, is not a smart way to go through life. that's just my opinion though.
[/quote]
Just because you don't see it on tv doesn't mean you don't know what is going on in the world. The EXACT same things can be found through other sources, so TV is not a necessity for that.


[quote name='Luigi' timestamp='1292739107' post='2193427']
I stopped watching TV a long time ago - I was sitting there watching a comedy, the point of which was would Woman A agree to sleep with Man B, and I realized I was investing a lot of emotion and time staring at colored dots on a piece of glass, focused on people who didn't even exist.

As far as the news goes... I missed 9/11 because I was working. When someone brought in a television, they just kept showing the same thing over & over again. The anchors would ask questions of the reporters in the street, who didn't know anything, so they'd ask people in the street, who didin't know anything, so they'd go back to the anchor, who didn't know anything. But they were calling it news. They did the same thing when Ronald Reagan was shot - in fact, two of the three networks announced that his press secretary James Brady had died (only ABC waited for confirmation); in fact, Brady lived for years after he was shot. ... I've seen enough real events that went to the news to know the extent to which the get skewed when they're aired - at this point, when I do watch a news story, I ask myself what [i]really [/i]went on (this is especially true of investigative stories).... I think it's unethical, and perhaps predatory, to stick a microphone in the face of a mother whose child has just burned to death in their apartment (or a woman whose husband has just been killed in a car accident, or a father whose daughter just committed suicide at college, etc.) to get her reaction for the 10 o'clock news - the TV vultures are making handsome salaries off the real suffering of real people, and they compete with each other to see who can make it the most heart-wrenching rather than doing something to help those in need.... I didn't see the Chilean miners come up, but I prayed for them every day when they were down there. I don't need the visual image to know that my prayers were answered. And if they had never been brought up, I wouldn't have needed to see that either.

What happens in Pennsylvania, Oregon, Chile, Democratic Republic of Congo, Benin, or right here in my own home town will happen whether I'm aware of it or not - and the news certainly can't/doesn't show all of it anyway. That's not cynical, that's just the way it is. People have always shared the news, but it took a long time for most of it to get around. Now with electronic media, we can get it much faster. But we still can't change/improve the situation being reported. So we wind up being news vultures just like the reporters, staring at ghoulish images from Haiti's earthquake - I can react to that by sending a check to a charity, but if I send the check today or tomorrow, it's not going to make a huge difference to the person pinned under a collapsed building right now.
[/quote]

[Lilllabettt]

I hope the people who say they will not let their kids watch the news because it is "depressing" have some other plan for making sure they stay up on current events. Maybe, subscribe to a newspaper or something? Although the news is there is considered "depressing" too?

I think it rises to the level of an obligation ... as citizens, as Christians ... to know what is going on in the world.

Since when do Christians embrace the idea that ignorance is bliss?

See no evil, hear no evil?

Really?

I guess I didn't get the memo.

[Era Might]

[quote name='Lilllabettt' timestamp='1292778632' post='2193470']
I hope the people who say they will not let their kids watch the news because it is "depressing" have some other plan for making sure they stay up on current events. Maybe, subscribe to a newspaper or something? Although the news is there is considered "depressing" too?

I think it rises to the level of an obligation ... as citizens, as Christians ... to know what is going on in the world.

Since when do Christians embrace the idea that ignorance is bliss?

See no evil, hear no evil?

Really?

I guess I didn't get the memo.
[/quote]
Current events is what's happening in front of our faces. Everything else is on a need to know basis.

Ignorance is not bliss, but neither is omniscience. I know what's going on in the world. It's the same stuff that's been going on for thousands of years. Murders, politics, births, deaths, and occasional acts of kindness. I can't do something about everything that's "going on in the world," vast as it is. My emphasis (and, I hope, the emphasis I can pass on to my children) is the world I've been born into, the world where I encounter people face to face every day.

Edited December 19, 2010 by Era Might

[fides quarens intellectum]

[quote name='MissScripture' timestamp='1292716748' post='2193384']
You would also have to be constantly sitting at the tv to find out about something like 9/11. Honestly, the news is one reason I would toss the tv. Newscasters do nothing but annoy the snot out of me, and most of the news tends to lead me towards despair. I find the internet a much more effective way of getting my news. In fact, with the Chilean miners, the only time I even heard about them on TV was not until the day they were being rescued. I heard about them soley from the internet up to that point. Really, if you have the internet, you're just as "connected" as if you use a TV, and possibly more so, since you're not at the mercy of just what the newscasters want to show you.
[/quote]

I agree. I catch cable and network news programs for short periods of time if I am on an elliptical at the gym, and with the miners, I did find out more about it through the internet because the TV news would only say stuff like, "Coming up, the latest on the Chilean miners." The problem is, their idea of "coming up" or "up next" means waiting through numerous commercial breaks and other segments - it seems they do a lot of teasers for news instead of just reporting it right away so that you have to stay tuned for the entire length of the news program. So annoying! No thanks, I'll just take a few minutes and read about it online.

[MissScripture]

[quote name='fides quarens intellectum' timestamp='1292779125' post='2193472']
I agree. I catch cable and network news programs for short periods of time if I am on an elliptical at the gym, and with the miners, I did find out more about it through the internet because the TV news would only say stuff like, "Coming up, the latest on the Chilean miners." The problem is, their idea of "coming up" or "up next" means waiting through numerous commercial breaks and other segments - it seems they do a lot of teasers for news instead of just reporting it right away so that you have to stay tuned for the entire length of the news program. So annoying! No thanks, I'll just take a few minutes and read about it online.
[/quote]
Very true! It's really more of a series of headlines. And they also seem to have a penchant for asking idiotic questions.

[dominicansoul]

well, seeing that in the convent we had no need for television, I kinda kept that with me when I left the convent, (with the exception of sports.) I pretty much read my news on the internet, and I will watch a game through links on the internet, which is nice, because most of them do not even have advertisments or anything like that.

I think television can be evil, if you watch the propaganda spewed from our national press offices, and with television dramas/comedies that show characters and lives lived without any reference or attention to God. But I also believe television can be very good, (EWTN comes to mind.) It's what we make of it. And its up to us to use or not to use it for the Greater Glory of God...

[Brother Adam]

TV is a neutral medium through which information (or entertainment) is shared. It is not any more morally evil or good than newsprint, papyrus, ipods, or interwebs are. It still remains a question of the quality of life and use of time. Traditional nuns who spend time watching tv, my guess, is strictly limited according to their way of life. I doubt it is on all day. If you are just using the tv for the news, I would prefer to use NCR, Lifesite, AP, and online sources where I can catch up in 5 minutes what it takes the tv 30 minutes or longer to give me, and get a less biased view and not submit myself to commercials. Movies can be used for fellowship, but are more likely to be used to eliminate fellowship. I ask myself what the tv is taking the place of - if we were not watching tv right now, what would we be doing? I see nothing wrong with tv when it is not abused, but we seem to be moving more and more towards getting rid of it. It is totally senseless to judge people for not using a tv or using a tv, any more than for using an ipod or not using an ipod, etc.

[Deb]

I had three tv's. I gave two of them away and the third I turned off 3 years ago. I will watch a movie about a saint maybe once every three months.
Once I got past the addiction of my soap operas, I was fine. The news is useless and there weren't any shows on anymore that fit the way I wanted to live my life. We are what we see and hear and I just didn't want that croutons around me anymore. It is all mindless and shallow and if it doesn't bring one closer to Jesus Christ, what purpose does it serve?

Edited December 20, 2010 by Deb

[Lilllabettt]

Hi Deb!!!!!

[ardillacid]

[quote name='Deb' timestamp='1292817732' post='2193555']
I had three tv's. I gave two of them away and the third I turned off 3 years ago. I will watch a movie about a saint maybe once every three months.
Once I got past the addiction of my soap operas, I was fine. The news is useless and there weren't any shows on anymore that fit the way I wanted to live my life. We are what we see and hear and I just didn't want that croutons around me anymore. It is all mindless and shallow and if it doesn't bring one closer to Jesus Christ, what purpose does it serve?
[/quote]
you rock

[cmotherofpirl]

My TV is on everyday, I have an antenna and pull in local channels, and cable which has very very few channels If the gbaby is here we watch Sesame Street in the morning. If Im not busy, I put onDr Oz in the afternoon who always motivates me to cook a healthy lunch and I watch the afternoon news from 4-5p, and listen to Jeopardy at 7p. Thursdays I watch Bones and on Sunday Masterpiece Theater if it interests me. If the neighbors are carrying on in the middle of the night I put on Universal Sports to drown them out. The rest of the time its classical music on the radio or silence.

[homeschoolmom]

[quote name='cmotherofpirl' timestamp='1292876804' post='2193666']
My TV is on everyday, I have an antenna and pull in local channels, and cable which has very very few channels If the gbaby is here we watch Sesame Street in the morning. If Im not busy, I put onDr Oz in the afternoon who always motivates me to cook a healthy lunch and I watch the afternoon news from 4-5p, and listen to Jeopardy at 7p. Thursdays I watch Bones and on Sunday Masterpiece Theater if it interests me. If the neighbors are carrying on in the middle of the night I put on Universal Sports to drown them out. The rest of the time its classical music on the radio or silence.
[/quote]
I don't like Dr. Oz. He makes me look at diseased organs. Bleh. No thanks.

[tinytherese]

I watched way too much t.v. during my childhood. I really was a couch- potato. It wasn't that I was watching anything immoral, just some stuff that rotted my brain. My little brother seems to either be watching t.v. or playing video games (and not Wii games that have him up and moving.) I miss the days when he would play with his toys more and used his imagination. Considering how much he has Nickelodeon on, I notice that the network plays Spongebob and iCarly on way too many times a day. Spongebob just irritates me most of the time, especially with the amount of stupidity of that sponge and his friend Patrick. If the little guy is going to have television on, I'd rather that it be a limited amount with a little bit of entertaining stuff that isn't mindless or something educational.

[Ed Normile]

[quote name='tinytherese' timestamp='1292880006' post='2193674']
I watched way too much t.v. during my childhood. I really was a couch- potato. It wasn't that I was watching anything immoral, just some stuff that rotted my brain. My little brother seems to either be watching t.v. or playing video games (and not Wii games that have him up and moving.) I miss the days when he would play with his toys more and used his imagination. Considering how much he has Nickelodeon on, I notice that the network plays Spongebob and iCarly on way too many times a day. Spongebob just irritates me most of the time, especially with the amount of stupidity of that sponge and his friend Patrick. If the little guy is going to have television on, I'd rather that it be a limited amount with a little bit of entertaining stuff that isn't mindless or something educational.
[/quote]


I had exactly the opposite childhood! I grew up with three younger sisters so all I wanted was away from them, I would get up at daylight so I could actually get into the bathroom and then leave. I spent 99% of my time either fishing, climbing trees, reading, building computers and writing code, and playing sports or fighting. I never watched Tv until I was married not even once that I can remember, my wife wanted one to keep up with Little House on the Prairie, the most boring chick fare ever created next to her daytime soaps. I eventually bought a vcr and became enthralled with the box. I seen every war movie and action flick on vhs until my wife balked and started getting chick flicks! man I did not know they even made these things so I went back to reading and computers. I occasionally watch football when I get the chance but I still do not watch much Tv to this day. I find it aimed at the simple minded, laugh tracks for heavens sake? I guess if that is what sells the advertising who am I to judge.

ed

Edited December 21, 2010 by Ed Normile

[Era Might]

[quote name='Ed Normile' timestamp='1292893044' post='2193700'] I grew up with three younger sisters so all I wanted was away from them, I would get up at daylight so I could actually get into the bathroom and then leave.
[/quote]
Hahahahahaha. Thanks for the laugh. Guess I'm lucky I never had sisters.

Edited December 21, 2010 by Era Might