A Love/Hate Relationship

A love/Hate relationship

A 2006* A.C. Neilson survey claimed that by the time your child graduates from high school he/she will have spent approximately 11,000 hours in the classroom and 15,000 hours watching TV. During the course of all this, they will have watched over 350,000 commercials and seen over 25,000 killings.

However, television has brought instant, around the globe, news coverage to our lives and made it possible for us, at least vicariously, to be citizens of the world. It has allowed us to make friends with Oprah, Mr. Rogers, SpongeBob SquarePants, Charles Kuralt, Barney Fife, Andy Rooney, Ray Romano, Bill Cosby and many others. It has brought us much joy and, from time to time, some education.

Television has also stolen much from us. Today’s children who huddle around the television monitor are missing something that every previous generation has enjoyed - the magic of childhood. Television killed skinny dipping, Christmas tree forts, chasing butterflies, drive-in movies, capture the flag and follow the leader. Aside from the Harry Potter books, children, generally, don’t read non-assignedbooks or newspapers. Most future generations of kids will not get to explore man in Heinlein’s The Martian Chronicles, float a raft down the river with Tom and Huck or read Leslie Conner’s great book. Waiting for Normal.

My daughter Kelly, as a high school junior, was studying a classic book in her literature class. The teacher had advised her students to watch the video tape because the book was difficult to follow. It seemed like such an outlandish suggestion that I didn’t believe it and called the teacher at home. Sure enough she did make that suggestion to her literature students and couldn’t understand my concern. I was not a happy camper.

I hope the next time with sit and watch TV we really enjoy it. It had better be good because we’ve paid a big price for it.

*By 2009, viewing habits have changed, somewhat. Too many kids are either texting, twittering, sexting or playing violent computer games to read books or actually play real games.

Trivia question of the day

(Try it without Google)

The answer will be in tomorrow’s blog.

Yesterday’s Question: In 1950, 35 U.S. troops were sent to that country and thousands are still there. What country were they sent? South Korea

Today’s Trivia: What organization boasts that 27 percent of it’s membership are blonde females?