Fear of the "Hole in the Wall"

I just read this great little piece on a man who just bought his first TV.

The money quote really sums up why I don't hook up television service to my 80-inch, Dolby Digital/DTS surround sound system:

“Television is just like making a hole in the wall,” said Albert Borgmann, a professor of philosophy at the University of Montana who studies technology’s impact. “All kinds of stuff comes in, on the screen, that we would never allow to come in through the door.”

Basically, that's why I've never allowed myself to hook up cable to TV in Korea – because friends and significant others would be always watching it, and because I might be drawn in to it myself. Nothing to do? Flip on the tube.

But still, I somehow believe that if you're going to vegetate, there are more active ways to do it. Frankly, I find a night spent surfing the Internet and blogging or just blasting the hell out of aliens on my Xbox somehow productive. At least I'm making something, or getting stress out, or I feel like I'm using the noggin' instead of just letting it sit and slowly melt.

In the end, when I watch TV, I feel like my brain is melting.

Now, I'll watch some Discovery Channel or Battlestar Galactica and go about my merry way. I don't mean to imply that that I think the very act of watching TV itself to be somehow evil. But when I mean "watching TV," in my head, I imagine sitting down with no particular idea of what to watch, and getting up 5 hours later not really having particularly enjoyed that previous five hours, nor having anything to show for it.

And I don't mean to gang up on Korean TV only, since I haven't "watched TV" back in the US since I was in middle school. I obsessively watched my Deep Space Nine back in grad school – but that was literally the single show I'd watch the entire week. My roommates in Oakland would be perplexed that I'd never sit in front of the tube, even though I had set up an entire room of massive speakers, the first model of Sony DVD player, and assorted A/V equipment.

Wanna watch Friends with me?" my roommate would plaintively ask. I'd always say no, but would sometimes humor her by watching 3rd Rock From the Sun and be pretty amused. That John Lithgow – what a card he is! But I was always a pretty asocial TV watcher.

Still, I must say that Korean television makes me feel even more that my brain is on Fast Melt Mode™ when I am forced to watch it. In fact, I dread going to relatives' houses over holidays primarily because I have to watch TV for hours, pretending to like it, smiling at all the right parts.

Another reason I don't sign up for service is because if my girlfriend is a normal Korean woman, she's gonna want to watch dramas and other popular shows – especially on the big HD screen I have at home. And I think a fight would ensue if I forbade TV in the house. Yet, I know I would want to rip my own eyes out of their sockets if I had to sit through 2 hours of Korean game shows. I really, really would immolate myself if I had to do that. I shit you all very much not. So no TV service in the house, and hence, no fighting about it. She just knows that she's gonna get her drama on without me.

OK, OK – I keep up and catch a few shows here and there. I try to ask Korean folks what's on these days, and since people in Korea generally tell the entire story up to and including the ending, I don't need to watch TV. For, as you have likely gathered, I cannot stand "watching TV." Not one, tiny bit.

People say to me that watching TV in Korea is a good way to learn the language. Pshaw, I say. Sure, there's a lot of conversing going on there, and it's a good way to keep the Korean flowing in, especially if you're an expat living with English-speaking roommates, or living alone. But yet, I still happen to think that true language learning comes through interaction, and I have yet to meet the TV show that includes subtitles in both English and Korean for their shows.

Subscribe to the "Korean dialogue on the screen" theory of language acquisition, do you? Well, how much more helpful do you think it would be to able to actually stop and see what they are saying in Korean, match it against the English subtitles, and back again? For me, I've found reading the subtitles while watching American movies – especially during the second viewing – or switching to the Korean subs while watching a Korean DVD for a choice phrase that I'd like to learn, far more helpful to my Korean learning than watching TV. In the end, in Korean or English or Swahili – TV is just too passive.

Is there anyone else out there, or is it just me and the guy in The New York Times? I have all kinds of advanced A/V heavy weaponry, but I also haven't "watched TV" for my entire adult life.

And I kind of like that.

Unlike old dude in The New York Times, no amount of equipment would make me want to own full TV service. Hence, my love of the iTunes way of doing things – download stuff piecemeal. Then I get to control what comes through the "hole in the wall."

I've already told all previous girlfriends at some point that I plan to raise my kids without a TV, but with the biggest, most advanced, Death Star-level home entertainment technology that exists. But I firmly believe that I should choose, control, and understand what goes on that big white screen in my house, and not just open it to the visual vomit of the lowest (and highest) points of a given culture.

The way I see it, having me and my kids blasting each other away in the near-virtual reality of the Xbox 9000, or whatever will be out when I have kids, will be far better than just letting them sit in the couch with the remote. And my theory is that when you have a huge screen, top-grade sound, and killer projection, you see TV for what it is – an experience that doesn't deliver.

I think it's no coincidence that TV's sound and picture quality has never and never will approach the quality of canned or planned entertainment. Hence, a night with an HD-DVD of my favorite flick and the director's commentary after that seems quite alright. Watching The View just makes me want to reach for the nearest handgun.

Grrr. I guess I'm a TV-phobe. Is that so wrong?

Comments

[stef]

I don't watch that much TV. I have a few select shows that I like, but I find most of it boring. OTOH I really love movies.

[suddenly susan]

what kind of person doesn't like TV?! i'll tell you what kind: communists and pedophiles.

[The Metropolitician]

Here, kiddie, kiddie...wanna see my Mao Tse Dong?

Hee hee...

[suddenly susan]

rotfl!

[Mark]

Just like another hole in a box. All kinds of stuff comes in there that you wouldn't put in through the top.

[bulgasari]

For a second there I thought I was reading something I'd written - I agree totally. These days I'll download a few favorite shows from home (simpsons and south park mostly, though 'Rome' and 'Carnivale' were a lot of fun too) but I haven't really 'watched tv' since I was in my teens; "Brains melting and running out of my ears" has been my favourite phrase to describe it.

I also agree about raising kids without tv, mostly to keep 'em away from all those ads. I was staying with a cousin years ago and watching her kids asking for the things they saw in the ads on TV and just thought, "There's no way in hell I'm gonna put myself through that..."

"We want to believe you dad, we really do; it's just that tv has spent so much more time raising us than you have."

[Figbash]

I was one of those expats who would leave the TV on, partially for "educational purposes" . . . but I don't think I ever felt that it was some kind of dynamic or effective way to aquire new skill in Korean. It was never anything more than a passive system to keep the sounds active in my head. Simply, I would *think* more in Korean if I was constantly hearing the sound of Korean. Also, while I would rather knaw my own limbs off than watch most Korean tv shows, there was something to be said for recognizing the popular shows, songs, and actors. It certainly helped me keep my "street cred" (HA!) with my friends and students.

[Fantasy]

Believe it or not, my Korean wife has picked up her German mostly from TV (of course she had lessons, as well). Germans (like Koreans) have the irritating tendency to talk to foreigners almost exclusively in English (however poor their knowledge of that language may be), thus making it impossible for these foreigners to learn German in a spontaneous interactive manner.