What is Digg?158 Comments
- mojaam, on 11/24/2007, -6/+103So much text, can't I just watch this on TV?
- sterntastic223, on 11/24/2007, -4/+57Yeah, Mind of Mencia is making you smarter.
- techmonk, on 11/24/2007, -3/+49"I can compare life now with life before television. Almost no one alive now can claim the same ability. Think twice about that last statement before continuing."
Yeah...well only about a couple billion people in India, China and Africa. - MunkeeBoy, on 11/24/2007, -0/+34He is correct in his views, TV is a terrible thing when a child is permanently planted in front of it. His assumption that he is the probably the only person who thinks like this is a little absurd. What he is missing is that yes, TV can be informative, with the aid of an inquisitive mind and other sources of information and experience. On it's own it can be a destructive influence...
- Birdoftruth, on 11/24/2007, -1/+31Guys honestly for me the TV is not my problem it is the Internet. I spend countless hours looking at news on the internet that it is terrible.
- gaagaale, on 11/24/2007, -0/+20my new addiction is not TV but Internet browsing.
- Adamande, on 11/24/2007, -3/+23"Thanks to the feminist revolution and the subsequent disappearance of mothers, the “story” is the parent."
Yeah, cause everyone knows fathers can't be parents. - vinecrawler, on 11/24/2007, -0/+16they didn't "theach" you how to write though
- ajb2015, on 11/24/2007, -3/+18regardless, you've been pacified. and the history channel just sells pro-american, pro-military propaganda.
- RobsaysHello, on 11/24/2007, -1/+16 Those of us who wish may turn off the box then enjoy our own pursuits in the relative peace of a tranquilized nation.
- dewyjuhl, on 11/24/2007, -2/+16"I can compare life now with life before television. Almost no one alive now can claim the same ability." Yes. Because everyone who is living must have television right?
- keyboardduder, on 11/24/2007, -1/+14The real problem is the reality TV, the network-specific programs (The today show, Etc.), and the news programs/channels. Thats where all the propaganda and dumbing down come from. I watch nothing but adult swim to take the edge off from a hectic day. The only news I need is from digg, reddit, fark, etc. User moderated news sources need to establish in the mainstream. Unfortunately, the big 10 (I'm sure...) wants nothing to do with it. And no, PBS doesn't count. Cause nobody watches it. Viacom and Newscorp need to burn to the ground.
- iamsamsamiam, on 11/24/2007, -10/+23I don't know why this guy is so against TV. Sure for the segment of society that enjoy to go into Lala Land with American Idol and the shows that parallel it's "stupifying" powers in the previous decades have many things they should be worried about.
But that's them. TV never hurt me, I like channels like TLC, Discovery and I usually settle the night with Comedy Central. My only other indulgence would be cartoons, but I'll tend to watch a lot of those that would be a satire of current events.
Television is as much a tool as literature and the internet. It's just the content you read and watch that's going to make you an evolved person or not. Because we can spend our entire day reading Harry Potter Books and watching Dancing with the Stars and Youtube videos where people get hit in the ball sack but it doesn't stop other people from doing something different - HotGore, on 11/24/2007, -2/+14The fallacy in his logic is that not all TV shows stop the thought process. Lost, Heroes, BSG, Daily Show, South Park even cause at least myself to think about pop culture, society, and humanities future. Yes no one can argue that Reba kills brain cells, but this is not the case for all shows on TV.
- dasdef, on 11/24/2007, -0/+11which has cut into my ***** sleeping hours god damnit
- KyjL, on 11/24/2007, -1/+11So you're saying Mike Rowe tagging along with Bloodworm Farmers and Mythbusters chucking frozen turkeys into airplane windshields is complete ***** meant to solely entertain under the masquerade of potentially learning a thing or two about what they're doing?
MAN I'VE BEEN LIED TO FOR SO LONG. - Eslamicolt3, on 11/24/2007, -1/+11Growing up, I used to always here this argument and at least for me, it never really made sense. When I was a kid in the early 90's, I would constantly be watching television or movies. For me, it was a window into other worlds. It turned me onto subjects and ideas that I never would have encountered if I hadn't seen it in a movie. I'd watch Happy Days or Bewitched on Nick at Night, or even better The Twilight Zone. There is such a wealth of information on television and the internet, I can't imagine being deprived of that. I've always told myself I'd engender the same interest in my kids.
- ajb2015, on 11/24/2007, -1/+10yeah...or some aspect of WWII.
- IheartZombies, on 11/24/2007, -7/+16You sound like a snob.
- Billistic, on 11/24/2007, -2/+11I'm glad someone else picked up on this one.
Guy is really on a high horse but in the end he's really just mad at women. - Urusai, on 11/24/2007, -0/+8I didn't realize how incredibly insulting and condescending television ads are until after I stopped watching television for a year. I still don't; I just download what I want to watch without ads. I also don't watch the television news, it's even worse than the ads.
- onethousandowls, on 11/24/2007, -1/+9did you notice? it turns out that a great many people reject tv for a period sometime in their teen years or early 20s. it's a rite of passage. there's nothing revolutionary about it. doing it doesn't make you a rebel or smarter or more perceptive or better than anyone else. it just means you were falling into an easy habit and you got sick of it, so you did something about it. but so many people toss tv and then go around talking about it like they're enlightened and that they've discovered the meaning of life. congratulations all you very special people.
i did it when i was 18 and didn't come back until sometime in my mid twenties. when i did come back, it was to news and documentaries for the most part, but not exclusively. i still don't value tv dramas, but there's absolutely nothing wrong with storytelling. yeah, there's a lot of crap on tv, and there are a a lot of people who waste too much time watching it. but ya don't have to, and not everything that comes through the tv is crap: if you dismiss tv, you are dismissing storytelling. but really what you want to do is dismiss couch potatoes who have no lives. so why not do that instead? that would be the correct thing to do.
it has always bothered me, too, that people do tend to discuss the latest thing they saw on tv, as if its a common denominator. soooo, i don't hang out with people like that; instead i hang with people who do things. easy! (some of them even watch tv!) - praveenmarkandu, on 11/24/2007, -1/+9sesame street thought me how to read... not my parents
- duckyinc, on 11/24/2007, -1/+9In television the guy meant ADS, they break your mind..
- Zarokima, on 11/24/2007, -0/+7Reading Harry Potter would be much better for someone than Dancing with the Stars or videos of nut-shots. Reading anything at all would be, trashy romance novels and picture books included, because with books you can set them down and think "Well that seems wrong, what if it happened this way?" or "Wow, that's a good point, let's do some research/pondering on this topic now." Where as with TV you have to completely give up your thought process or not pay attention. There are some good things to be found on youtube, though, and since it's pausable you could make the same argument for the rare good youtube as with books.
By "rare good youtube" I was referring to intellectually stimulating material. I admit that watching videos of nut-shots can be quite amusing, but in this case I was using "good" to mean more than mere amusement. - Smeed, on 11/24/2007, -5/+12I dont understand how people like this guy can pass judgment when they were never in the situation. Hes saying TV turns you into a zombie, effects you emotionally etc but he never really watched TV as a child so how can he know? It reminds me of when Jack Thompson says video games turn people into killers. Hes never played video games, so he doesnt have a good idea of what they do to you.
- TheHurler, on 11/24/2007, -6/+13Hey, All you people who think you're ok because you only watch discovery, TLC, the Science Chanel, "Heroes"... Well, as someone who's been on TV six times, and ALL of them on Discovery, History Channel and the Science Channel, I can tell you with utmost confidence that what you're watching is first and foremost an entertainment show, pretending to be somewhat informative.
Research? Did you know that there are exactly zero historians working for the history channel? How many physicists work for the science channel? Take a guess... ZERO! Compare that to how many chefs work for the cooking channel. Get the picture.
The shows I was on didn't care one bit about facts. The most telling example of that is that I was cast as an history expert! My educational background - Radio, TV and Film, with a minor in French! Why? Because I have a web site blah blah blah...
In TV today, visibility equals credibility. Wanna be an expert? Start a blog, sell some products on-line, self-publish a book. Wait for a TV producer to notice you, don't ask for any money and he'll probably cast you in the show (they love free experts!) and viola! Now you're a bonafied expert.
Seriously, I can't stand to watch TV anymore. It's ALL fiction or at best, guesswork, even NOVA (I have friends who've been on a couple of NOVA episodes). Read a book instead. Wanna really know something about the world? I recommend "Guns, Germs and Steel", "Big Coal", and "Ogallala Blue" for starters. Real eye-openers there.
My kids are allowed to watch no more than one half-hour show a day, and they have to earn that. It would be none, but they've got to live in the society they were born in, so they need some exposure to keep up with the culture. But not enough to rot their brains. And yes, it will rot their brains. Nothing is sadder, and more annoying than to interact with someone who learned all their social skills from sitcoms and TV dramas.
The web site that got me on TV- http://www.Trebuchet.com
TV shows I've been on:
Junkyard Wars
Monster Garage
Modern Marvels
Mail Call
In The Name of Science
Urban Legends Revealed - bungoman, on 11/24/2007, -4/+11This is ***** stupid. This ***** makes arguments about television based solely on speculation and conjecture without any kind of evidence (even a few anecdotes would have been better than what he offered). TV is stupid, but it doesn't cause people to become weak willed idiots. People were like that before TV and if TV is ever done away with they'll still be like that.
- Birdoftruth, on 11/24/2007, -3/+9uhh no, only around sundays and holidays...And you are thinking of National Geographic Channel, not History
- gutenpress, on 11/24/2007, -2/+8TV didn't turn a Democracy into an empire. Apathy did. And this particular brand of apathy didn't come from TV, though it sure makes an entertaining excuse, it came from people simply not giving a damn. And that doesn't come from TV either.
The same reasoning behind saying that TV should be "taken away" because it causes people to "stray from the path" and become "sinners" has been used to create far worse "Empires" than this one. - markperia, on 11/24/2007, -1/+7Discovery channel is awesome. There's Dirty Jobs, Mythbusters, Man vs Wild, Survivorman, Last Man Standing, Planet Earth, Fearless Planet even How its Made is sometimes interesting. The only bad time to watch Discovery channel is midday like around 12pm, Its just a bunch of conspiracy stuff and paranormal stuff.
- FunkyWitDaSysTm, on 11/24/2007, -3/+9i got rid of my tv 7 months ago, and i'm glad i did. i still download some tv shows, but i get no ads, no propaganda masquerading as "news", and no more 500 channels of crap. instead, you know what i do? i go out and *gasp* HAVE A LIFE. if i want to come home after a long day of work, or whatever, and decompress and/or zone out, i put on some good music, relax, drink some tea or a beer, and read some news online, from sources i can check and cross-reference.
when i go to work on monday (or go anywhere, come to think of it) and get into the whole 'what did you do this weekend' conversation, everyone can't stop going on about american idol or lost or some other meaningless crap. i sit and think to myself how these people, so busy with these trivialities, have missed out on the world around them.
it makes me sad. - knobtwiddler, on 11/24/2007, -0/+6long?? ohhh the irony.
on that note i think its bedtime.. you inspired me to read myself to sleep.. .zzzzz - krepen, on 11/24/2007, -2/+7lol i'm sure the commercials aren't helping much either.
- reddikilowatt, on 11/24/2007, -0/+5First war to be filmed on a large scale.
- bwpayne, on 11/24/2007, -0/+5Actually mostly on a certain man in WWII, it makes me think that the H doesn't only stand for History Channel.
- thespudmall, on 11/24/2007, -15/+20I watch history channel, discovery channel, and comedy central. No dumbing for me!
- cmyk, on 11/24/2007, -3/+8PLEASE, lame argument. Doesn't even take into account recent history as opposed to human history: Most people are stupid, and will forever be.
The critical thinkers always have had an uphill battle against the drones. If it's not TV, it's propaganda, or their parents teaching drivel. TV or not, an individual has to, at some point, wake up and learn to question EVERYTHING (even this dumbass article).
You don't do this? Congratulations, you're a drone.
At least I still have my educated and well informed opinion, and I'm still be able to watch Heroes.
The irony is, this article was written for the drones. - Rammsteined, on 11/24/2007, -0/+5Yes, lets blame laziness, poor parenting and poor education on TV!!!
- HotGore, on 11/24/2007, -1/+6Everyone knows TV is there to entertain. Yes facts are stretched, and the truth is not so satisfying. I don't think the author, or even my comment you referred to arguing that fact. The point is that TV dulls us to the point where we stop thinking, which is just sensationalism. It is quiet ironic.
- theholyraptor, on 04/07/2008, -0/+5assuming that I understood your definition of 'network-specific', I would disagree with you on the fact that a lot of shows today that aren't reality tv still heavily feed into subtle propaganda or at least the dumbing down of people. Obviously the things you mentioned are the prime offenders however.
- spawnfree, on 11/24/2007, -0/+4Is your mind all broken up by adverts? Try new brain-eze...
- highPhone, on 11/24/2007, -2/+6nice rant. might as well just tell people to go out and be social, don't patronize them for choosing a fun way to shut off their brains. I'm sure you waste enough time in your own hermit shell, or you'd see the world is far more complex than the basic model you paint.
Obviously TV interferes with a child's socialization! And if I ate too many carrots, it would interfere with my digestion. - bewareofmoose, on 11/24/2007, -0/+4And, I guess, men too. As a soon-to-be father, I'm kind of offended at his implication that the raising of a child is purely the mother's domain.
- dezmo, on 11/24/2007, -0/+4OMG!! NO ONE CAN EVER JUDGE ANYONE OR ANYTHING UNLESS THEY HAVE EXPERIENCED EVERY MINUTE DETAIL THEMSELVES!!!
- sonstone, on 11/24/2007, -4/+8Ok, try this. 1) Turn off the TV 2) read Fahrenheit 451, Brave New World, 1984, Animal Farm and some books on early american history 3) Take a look at the state of our world right now. 4) Then tell me if you think all of these great subjects and ideas you are introduced to on TV really mean anything in the grand scope of things.
- transcendz, on 11/24/2007, -0/+4It's very simple : watch today's kids, and compare them to kids who don't watch TV, or to kids 40 years ago. If you do this experience, you'll be surprised for sure on the big difference TV makes to child's psychology.
- sonstone, on 11/24/2007, -0/+4I hope your comment was a joke....
- sowdog, on 11/24/2007, -0/+4I think thats part of the problem as well. This window into other worlds as you see is not a way to stimulate your mind. you've become a passive viewer and the idea of imagining a wonderous world of your own is gone. TV bombards you with this stream of information without you having to take your mind for a walk around what ifs. How often have you watched an interesting show and paused it to go off the tangent with that idea? We're being fed information and we're used to it. For myself the it's become quite frightening to know i've changed because of it. If i dont get the bombarded with the information im interested in, i just switch channels. If the 80s created the MTV generation of children with 3 minute video attention spans, ive become the internet generation merely skimming through digg for useless pieces of trivia. this was also brought up in farenheit 451. We're fed information, true. but what is the quality of what we're fed.
- bungoman, on 11/24/2007, -0/+3Exactly. I don't watch nearly as much TV now compared to when I was a kid. But the TV I do watch is definitely the better shows out there. I've learned to filter out all the crap. It's called growing up, something the author of this essay doesn't seem to realize most people do eventually.
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