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A year (and counting) without cable

Posted By Scott Warnock On In virtual children by Scott Warnock | 9 Comments

So we got rid of cable about a year ago. The kids are not alright. Of course, they’re bitter about it, and maybe rightfully so, because I’m not convinced any of us are better off. You know, you get rid of cable to live a more intellectual life, to get more in touch with yourself, with your family. But is any of that happening?

Yeah, we probably do watch less TV, but TV watching is still going on. I know that studies galore show how bad TV is as a lifestyle habit, but in line with Steven Johnson [1]‘s Everything Bad is Good for You, TV shows have also become increasingly smart. Johnson says, “But popular television shows — and to a slightly lesser extent, popular films — have also increased the cognitive work they demand from their audience, exercising the mind in ways that would have been unheard of thirty years ago.” Indeed, I know my big-chug style consumption of The Wire left me stunned at how it rivaled anything I’d ever seen or read before in story depth and complexity.

Instead of quality serials, though, we’re laying around watching the delights offered up by what our antenna can pick up. We’re glued to Sanford & Son, Charlie’s Angels, Three’s Company, and Different Strokes. Not exactly the recipe for higher family IQ.

This is how we get our TV nowadays. Yes, this is an antenna.

I’m not even sure we’ve reduced raw screen time. The kids still sneak in plenty of FIFA and Clash of Clans and, of course, Minecraft — probably more than they would if they had some juicy cable to watch. I have even noticed, to my dismay, that one of my kids now spends time, and this has to be a new low, watching narrated videos about video games. That, to me, is the equivalent of putting a spoonful of Quik on top of your Cocoa Pebbles.

We’re not reaping the reward of family bonding time either. We all pack up and go on vacation to spend some time together, but our vacation is filled with sometimes devious efforts by the kids — “Seriously, I think I’m allergic to Boston air!” — to stay in a hotel room so they can catch up on shows. The rare times we assemble around the electronic hearth we spend, since we’re back in the world of antennas, having old-school arguments about who’s going to get up to adjust the antenna.

So we’re not TV-less intellectuals as much as we’re cable-less rubes.

Also, because we’re not paying for TV, we’re doing what almost everyone else in an illusionary “free” situation does: Trade money for time, specifically time spent watching ads. And oh what ads. Imagine the ads that would appeal to the Charlie’s Angels daytime demographic. Instead of high-quality ads about cars and beer, we watch ads encouraging lawsuits for hard-to-pronounce illnesses and promos for devices to cure your bad back.

But maybe while my kids aren’t learning much from the shows, they are getting something out of the ads. In an unfortunate, non-TV related injury, my poor wife toppled down the steps recently and twisted her ankle (she’s all better now). As she described this event to me, including how she laid there for several minutes, our little guy overheard us. He looked up and said to her, “You should get Life Alert!”

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Scott Warnock [5]

Scott Warnock is a writer and teacher who lives in South Jersey. He is a professor of English at Drexel University, where he is also the Associate Dean of Undergraduate Education in the College of Arts and Sciences. Father of three and husband of one, Scott is president of a local high school education foundation and spent many years coaching youth sports.