T.V. Turn-off Week: A Constructive Use of Time?

I thought our on-going discussion about CUOT could use a new wrinkle. Here it is: What does TV turnoff Week mean now that television has so much competition for those teen eyeballs, hearts, and minds from social networking sites? TV Turn-off Week promoters advocate a one week cessation of television in order for TV viewers to possibly develop, or rekindle, other activities that involve more social interaction or physicality. There is no one clearing house of TV Turn-off week information (it was started by Adbusters in 1995). In all the sites I perused, I did not come across much comment about online screen time. But I can tell the paradigm is shifting, because although the URL for one site may be tvturnoff.org, the site title reads: The Center for Screen-Time Awareness. My thoughts on this: Just give them time. Within a few years, The Center for Screen-Time Awareness will perhaps have a new name for this week-long experiment, something like Screen-Time Turn-off Week.

I noticed that all TV Turn-off sites mostly present research promoting the decision to read over television viewing more than other non-TV activities. Yet they also all have information about how TV is a passive activity, and makes you fat.

Sadly, I don’t burn a lot of calories reading. Do you? I’ll tell you what makes you fat, education. Undergrad years give you the freshman fifteen, and don’t get me started on what graduate school has done to my derriere. So much sitting around and reading…but this is a cheap shot and I know it. Even worse, it’s a digression, not a good idea for the blog format. I’m stopping now, promise. But I couldn’t help notice the TV Turn-off advocates were kind of contradicting themselves somewhat with their advice for non-TV watching activities.

I am also wondering about TV Turn-off’s relevance in light of a book I ‘ve been reading, Everything Bad is Good for You by Steven Johnson. In his book Johnson discusses how recent TV shows have more complicated story threads to follow, and are therefore more challenging. (Obviously there’s more to it, but this isn’t a book review.) Johnson presents a through argument that watching TV today is no longer the waste of time it once was, say, 15 years ago when TV Turn off Week first launched. Does the latest addition of computer activity give new life to a phenomenon that was in danger of becoming obsolete in the face of increasingly enriching television offerings?

Which leads to another subject, our TV viewing assignment. I chose the Gilmore Girls. I used to watch the show in the late ‘90s. My friend owns all the episodes, so I must say this colored my choice more than anything. (I mentioned in class about my GG fan friend. Here’s a link to an essay he wrote for all fans. Anyway, Gilmore Girls caught my ear while channel-surfing one night. I paused on the show long enough to hear Lorelei say some funny line like “Yeah, it’s a nice house if you like Edith Wharton as a decorator.” I was surprised— did I just hear a WB show make an Edith Wharton joke? Indeed I did. I started watching from then on. Johnson describes this type of TV show as an intelligent show, rather than a show that makes you intelligent: “The intelligence arrives fully formed in the words and actions of the actors onscreen. They say witty things to each other, and avoid lapsing into tired sitcom clichés, and we smile along in our living room, enjoying the company of these smart people.”

To me, shows like this are an example, underscored by similar comments in Steven Johnson’s book, that our culture has been experiencing an overall improvement in the quality of many goods and services. TV is just one among many. I think what I call the “sink or swim” mentality(as opposed to the lowest common denominator mentality) really started with The Simpsons. Each episode was loaded with often obscure cultural references. The show did, and does, nothing to help you figure out the origin of these references—figure it out yourself, or just enjoy the yucks on the surface, which isn’t that bad an alternative.

My personal example of the new quality standard is Starbucks. Say what you will about the ubiquitous nature of the chain, I find it amazing that a decent cup of coffee only became available to us all so late in the last century. I’ve heard lots of complaints about Starbucks coffee, but people, we are splitting hairs here! Complaining about Starbucks is just another example of the new quality in our everyday lives. Starbucks has nothing on Peets or Torafazione, two other chains on every corner in San Francisco. But before Starbucks, you maybe had a good local, corner café, but other than it, was Denny’s or the 7-11 for the rest of us saps. Now a five dollar cup of coffee is everymans right!