So what would happen if most Americans would just turn off their TV, en masse -

[NRaleighLiberal]

cancel their cable subscriptions, cancel their dish services. Ignore the endless advertisers, ignore the useless media - and just get what they need off the web, read books, take walks, interact with their loved ones.

Sounds like progress to me. Sounds like the country's collective IQ could rise significantly. Feels like things would get politically more in balance and aimed toward the way things should be to take away the right wing media megaphone.

just thinkin.

[anonymous171]

1. My idea would be to forbid Corporations from owning media companies

And vice versa of course.

[roesch]

5. we did just that

Last week I cancelled our cable service because I realized how little we value what is shown on TV, and what we do watch-- PBS and March Madness- will look great in HD thanks to our converter box. In the mean time I will continue to read blogs, and books.

[onenote]

43. so only really really rich individuals should be able to own and operate media businesses?

You do understand what a "corporation" is, right?

[LynzM]

2. Yep.

I always said that if "the terrorists" really wanted to change this country, they'd find a way to take out TV entirely. People would have to read, and talk to each other more, again.

[dysfunctional press]

3. i enjoy watching tv...

and just because something is in book form, it doesn't mean that the content is superior to everything that's broadcast on television.
i'm disabled with chronic pain and an arthritic spine- watching television is one of my escapes from that.
the cultural snobbishness of some people knows no bounds.

[NRaleighLiberal]

4. Boy, are you a shallow thinker to take my post as cultural snobbishness.

There is a bit more depth at what I am getting at. Or are you that brainwashed by/addicted to the big box?

[dysfunctional press]

11. "brainwashed by/addicted to the big box?"- nope...no snobbishness there...

:eyes:

[NRaleighLiberal]

15. Why is it "snobby" to acknowledge what TV does - it pushed advertisement at people.

And they do it because it works! Look at the DiTech commercials, the fast food pushing their value menus - none of this is good for people, but research has proven that it is very effective.

No thanks - call it snobbish, but I prefer to think for myself.

[dysfunctional press]

22. if you call that thinking....

there was plenty of 'dumbing down' in advertising and literature, long before television appeared on the scene.
and there are PLENTY of worthwhile and informative programs on television today.

but- you go ahead and 'think' what you like...even if you can't see the snobbishness of your attitude.

[iamthebandfanman]

45. exhibit A)

the bible.

[rvablue]

32. There are advertisements all over the internet....even on DU.

Guess you shouldn't come to this site or any others that have advertising.

[iamthebandfanman]

44. well says you

i didnt know you were the authority on entertainment and the role of TV in modern society...



you are stating your opinion as factual without any facts and calling someone who disagrees with you an addict... so yes, that could loosely be translated as snobby

[LiberalPersona]

58. Are you trying to say the internet

is not subject to advertising?
It's even worse on the internet than on television. Spam comes straight to people's e-mail enmasse (ISPs have spam blocker features but even with that it still gets through). Millions of websites are covered in pop-up ads and ads that take control of your browser, significantly degrading the experience. Bots spam forums and usenet groups with ads (which prompted the invention of captchas that again, degrade experience). Unskippable 40-50 second ads precede videos on countless websites.

[Greyhound]

23. Actually it is superior. No matter how crappy the content, the act of reading

stimulates the brain, it is interactive. I'm not saying that it would be some panacea, turning our nation around overnight, but after a couple weeks or month, I'm certain that people would find themselves in a much better mental state.

Television turns your brain off and sometimes that is beneficial, but pot does a much better job of that and the user decides/creates the input while the brain is calmed.

[dysfunctional press]

26. "Television turns your brain off... "

:eyes:

would you mind explaining the bio-chemical process that it initiates that results in someone's brain being "turned off"?

[Greyhound]

35. I'm sorry, but I don't have the time right now (I'm moving), but there are dozens

(probably hundreds)of studies going back to at least the 70s.

Maybe some kind DUer with the info at hand will provide some.

ETA: http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2007/10/20/how-television-affects-your-brain-chemistry-and-that-s-not-all.aspx">Here's one source I found in a few seconds.

[dysfunctional press]

38. the link you provided is hard to read with a LARGE AD covering most of it...

it seems the internets are in a hurry to become the next television- when do we start turning those off?

[Greyhound]

56. Sorry their page doesn't work for your browser. Did you look into it anywhere else?

I don't know who this guy is, as I said, I found it in a few seconds search, but if you look you will find many, many studies showing how deleterious it is.

As for little kids, who's brains are still developing, it is...

Well, I'm sure you will find out for yourself.

[jwirr]

24. I think the OP was talking more about the influence that TV has on

our way of thinking than what it contains. I for one like to watch TV also but I realize that the media is backing up right wing propaganda and lying to me most of the time. I would like to see that stopped and if it took turning of the box for a while I would gladly join in.

[dysfunctional press]

29. "...if it took turning of the box for a while I would gladly join in"

what's stopping you from doing it on your own?

[jwirr]

33. One person turning off the TV is not a going to make much difference. nt

[dysfunctional press]

34. and when everyone takes that stance, NOBODY acts.

and nothing gets done.

:shrug:

[jwirr]

36. That seems to be the case. It would be extremely hard to talk many

Americans into doing this on a big enough scale.

[dysfunctional press]

37. especially when nobody wants to go first.

which is surprising in a country so full of "me first"ers

[Greyhound]

54. It's been three years since we "went first". It has made a huge difference

in our lives. The first, most noticeable one being how much more time there is to get shit done (except for the longer periods spent on DU).

[Hannah Bell]

60. plenty of people have turned off their tvs on principle.

but you won't.

[bdamomma]

51. it would give those corporations a big message if we did.

[mainegreen]

6. They'd start watching bad japanese manga on the internet, like what happened to me.

:D

[Bill McBlueState]

14. this is a good point

The people I know who lack TVs waste *way* more time on the internet than I've ever spent watching TV.

[NRaleighLiberal]

17. It's more than that - it is doing useful things with your time, as you allude to.

The Internet is just as serious an addiction, potentially, I agree.

[aikoaiko]

7. baby boom starting 9 months later

[terisan]

8. Most Americans would appear Zombie-like for a month or however long withdrawal takes;

then they would loosen up , look around, smile more, start thinking their own thoughts again.

[LeftHander]

27. WIthdrawl from TV is real....

People get confused...I was some 5 years ago when I quit watching TV...

Shortly afterward though everything looked better. My senses became attuned to the gentler sounds again.

TV is so bad. You don't really know until you stop watching it.

30 days of not watching TV will make you never want to watch it again.

[Greyhound]

55. True. It's downright insulting to watch it now.

You know it's bad when you are still habituated, but you have to get away from it for awhile to really get just how horrendous it is.

OTOH, it can be quite depressing having to deal with/listen to the rest of the victims of the Soma box.

[Cleita]

9. I think it's already happening. My neighbor canceled his cable and since we

only get two stations out here in the boonies, he says it's good enough for him cause he's not watching much TV these days anyway. My family is thinking of doing the same thing as they watch TV less and less. I might give up my satellite if the programming keeps getting dumbed down. I can download most program I want through my computer anyway. I originally got cable because I wanted to watch CNN, back when Turner was still in charge but since it's become the Wolf Blitzer channel I haven't watched for seven years.

[Marrah_G]

10. Lots of people would be out of work.

[Silent3]

12. Then my new home theater would go to waste...

...and that would be a shame!

Are movies on Blu-Ray included in your hypothetical "shut it all down!" scenario? :)

For my own part, I think I can trust my BS filters well enough that TV isn't going to mislead me and poison my mind. I suppose that I don't trust everyone else's BS filters as much as I trust my own, but I wouldn't want to put myself in the position of saying what's okay for me to do isn't okay for someone else to do.

[NRaleighLiberal]

16. Netflix! We use our TV only for movies now.

[Rockholm]

61. Same here.

I do get what the OP was saying. It would certainly cripple big media. I find it quite interesting that the cable media talking heads bash the car companies and then cut to car commercials. If they car companies cut all ads, say goodbye to some of the talking heads.

[Webster Green]

13. I canceled my TV service with Comcast..

Still have the phone and high speed internet, but canceled the TV entirely. Saves me a lot of money I was spending for next to nothing. :thumbsdown:

[PVnRT]

18. Funny you mention ads...

Seeing as how there are at least three on this page, since I don't have a star.

Advertising is 100 times worse on the internet than on television.

[jwirr]

19. The media industry would go down. And my first thought was we

would miss KO, Rachel Maddow, Jon Stewart and colbert.

[rrneck]

20. If cable television

offered a la carte programming, it might have a chance. I haven't had a TV for years and haven't missed it. Every time I go to a friends house and turn the damn thing on I am amazed at how much crap there is. But there is some good programming, you just have to pay for about a hundred shopping and religion channels to get it.

[onenote]

48. about a hundred shopping an religion channels?

Hyperbole much?

Out of over 500 cable and satellite cable programming networks, maybe 30 or 40 can be characterized as religious or shopping channels and I bet that if you checked the line up of your local cable company, the number offered on the basic/expanded basic tier is half that.

One of the nice things most television sets sold in the last ten years (and most cable set top boxes) is that they can be programmed to skip over individual channels. Don't want to scroll past a shopping or religion chaannel or a foreign language channel or Fox News -- program your set to skip it.

[rrneck]

50. Yeah, I've had the red ass all morning.

I forgot about programmable options. Thanks for the reality check.

[RB TexLa]

21. According to some on DU millions and millions of middle and low wage earners would be

immediately thrown out of work and kicked out of their homes in California. Oh and the world would be such a dark and dreary place that there would be mass suicides in the street because without actors how could any mortal human being find the will to live.

[soothsayer]

25. Then they'd start charging us for web usage, content, etc.

[slackmaster]

28. That would be a good way to reduce our country's carbon footprint

I like it.

[Fumesucker]

30. This gadget would likely come back into fashion..

[handmade34]

31. yes

and make their own beer and quit buying processed food. Hurray!!!

[ogneopasno]

39. I'd miss my hockey games. It would kinda suck.

[tom_paine]

40. What would happen? Think 300,000,000 heroin addicts forced to go cold turkey.

Think about how many of the converstaions in modern daily life are strictly repetitions of things people hear on TV.

What would happen?

Mass madness. Ennui. Anomie. Nihilism.

TV is such an important tool for social control and pacification now, I would expect damned near every societal institution to fall before TV would suffer in the least.

Interesting thought experiment, though. Thanks for this post.

It would be bad. Maybe not as bloody as I suppose but equally bad in other ways.

Think 300,000,000 heroin addicts forced to go cold turkey, all at the same time.

[L0oniX]

41. What would people do without American (idiot) Idol or Jerry Springer?

:shrug:

[NRaleighLiberal]

42. I think most of you got my point, which is great to see.

We got rid of all but basic cable two years ago - and because there is so little on network TV, we watch no more than an hour or two per day - all of it news (a bit of local, PBS newshour). We also sit with the remote and mute all ads.

We are trying to go the way of low tech - I roast my own coffee, we grow a large garden, can, play lots of music - read or watch movies - we didn't go on withdrawl from TV at all, and are actually much happier now that we've minimized it considerable in our lives.

[iamthebandfanman]

46. well thats great for you

but not everyone is you. what you like and what you want isnt what everyone likes and wants.

im sorry that not everyone bows to your opinion on television.

if that means i didnt get 'your point' , so be it.

the point i see being made is that you think your better than people who watch television regularly.


well heres a cookie, great job.

[NRaleighLiberal]

53. Man, lighten up!

[Gwendolyn]

47. Family Karaoke Nights might be some of the bad fallout. n/t

[Greyhound]

57. LOL!

:rofl:

[defendandprotect]

49. I think it's been happening all along ---

There were huge drops as the networks -- including PBS as it moved more and more

under corporate control -- changed hands.

CNN/Turner used to have something like 13 million viewers -- at the changeover

it dropped to 10 million.

Fox has also had huge drops over the decade.

I haven't seen anything recent on all of this -- this is old, old info.

PBS has long been called "Petroleum Broadcasting System" because of long time

Exxon involvement -- and now, of course, heavy corporate involvement.

Decades ago, the GOP moved the private Corporate for Public Broadcasting in over

PBS control.

How much are you watching ---

how many commercials do you watch?

[cynatnite]

52. Sounds to me like people wouldn't be as engaged with the rest of the world...

A bad idea, IMO.

[tekisui]

59. We will be testing your theory when the teevee switches to digital.

Thousands, maybe millions will lose their signal. We'll get to judge their reactions on a sample size.

[NRaleighLiberal]

62. good point.

[rucky]

63. Hulu would beat out Google as the most visited website.