Why I Traded My TV for a Turntable

Good grief. Please do not take so much pride in what you consume or refrain from consuming.

Americans talk about TV shows way too much ... it's not your fault.

I don't watch TV series, but to understand what it is about, when I hear about a popular one I check the Wikipedia page, it usually contains all the information I need to know.

> Day 6—What if this becomes an alienating experience because the rest of the world has changed? What if I make time for social connections that can’t happen, because there’s nobody left to connect to?

I was afraid of this race-to-the-bottom scenario on campus at my university (and probably any university across America).

People would bring their cell phones into the dining halls and the student center. This isn't a problem if a few people do it, but it almost seems contagious to me. When people disconnect themselves from the public, while they are in public, it destroys the whole purpose of being in public. They become absorbed in their phones, which eliminates any possibility of meeting a new friend or starting a conversation. That in turn causes other people, who would have done those social things, to turn to their phones so they may go to the only place they may now communicate: social media.

It all seems so silly: hundreds of students in a student center or other public space, all heads down focused on their phones. Then what was the point of having a student center in the first place? I feel bad for people who struggle with forming new relationships, as the public space is decreasingly helping those people meet others.

My university president even mentioned in a "fireside chat" video that a great challenge our campus faced was a student engagement problem. I wonder why? Not like the university did anything toward that effort... in fact, they installed even more televisions in all the dining halls across campus.

I'll shamelessly admit, though many would disagree with me, that I hope one day in the near future public store owners, campus owners, etc. all ban screens (phones and TVs) in public spaces. It's fine to use them in your home, but I believe it's destroying the social fabric when everyone is always glued to a screen, even in public.

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Also relevant: when I was young my mom was concerned that I was addicted to the computer. She wasn't wrong.

But at least my addiction is limited to the private realm. It would be impractical to lug around a desktop computer everywhere I went to extract every precious minute of entertainment possible. The stereotype of the guy playing World of WarCraft in his mom's basement is at least limited to that basement.

Today we have the equivalent of those guys and girls playing WoW in their mom's basement, but it's not in the basement... it's everywhere.