[OT] All TV is bad?

[Bill McGonigle]

On Jun 19, 2005, at 12:30, Jim Kuzdrall wrote:

>     To demonstrate this point to your satisfaction (or not), write out
> the dialog from one such program you find typical.  (Sometimes you can
> get a transcript from their web site.)  Since the video is just pretty
> pictures, this transcript is all of the information the program offered
> you.
>
>     Less than two pages usually holds all the information in a 30 
> minute
> program.  With the simple words and short sentences, an average reader
> can get through it in 5 minutes.  I can't waste an half hour to get 5
> minutes of information.  I might justify it to make me sleepy prior to
> bed, but I read the gnhlug-discuss for that.

This might be true for the Hitler^h^h^h^hstory Channel, but I'll cite 
two counter examples:

   I learned to do woodworking from the New Yankee Workshop (though I 
get Fine Homebuilding for more advanced techniques)
   I learned to greatly improve my cooking skills from Good Eats (almost 
none of this is covered in cookbooks)
   I learned to do some of my home improvements from Hometime (I still 
have a bookshelf of relevant material) and others from Ask This Old 
House (even though I still subscribe to The Family Handyman)
   I learn a lot about new construction techniques from This Old House 
(stuff that's not covered in my Fine Homebuilding or The Journal of 
Light Construction)

None of these has a significantly long script and the visual learning 
is essential.  Books would be sub-par in these categories, say learning 
to flip an omelette, mortising a table leg, or flying in a precast 
concrete wall.

Another useful aspect of Television is the low effort involved.  For 
instance, I often do work while listening to Charlie Rose.  He has 
guests on talking about very significant things I'd never consider go 
looking up because they simply hadn't occurred to me.  Sure I could go 
read similar information on the web, but a) I wouldn't know to go 
looking for it, and b) I wouldn't spend half an hour of dedicated time 
several times a week looking for it.  It's a very easy way to increase 
one's knowledge of current affairs without spending considerable 
effort.

PVR's are essential for efficient consumption of television.

I also find the "proudly TV free" crowd interesting - most of the ones 
I know replace TV with NetFlix or owned videos, which I think is 
missing the point, but they still wear it like a badge of honor, often 
in an aloof counterculture manner.  They also seem pretty uninformed 
about the world in general, though that's purely correlated and may be 
self-selecting.

-Bill
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