The View
Not owning a TV has given me something no show could provide: empathy for the uncommon man
Once, when I was in high school, my father called home from a business trip in confusion. Each time he introduced himself as being from Boston, he said, someone would ask for his prediction about the upcoming final episode of Cheers. "What is this Cheers?" my dad wanted to know. "Does it have something to do with a bar?"
At the time, I couldn't believe anyone related to me could be so hopelessly out of it. Little did I know that TV ignorance is an inherited trait. One of the high school students I teach recently listed her favorite TV shows in an essay, and I hadn't heard of a single one. I wouldn't recognize a Desperate Housewife if she showed up in my kitchen and started making dinner. I couldn't pick most TV news anchors out of a criminal lineup, and I can truthfully say that my life didn't change one bit when TV writers went on strike. Mine is among the less-than-1 percent of American households without a television set - a fact I have, in the past, gone to some lengths to hide.
See, people look at me funny when they find out I don't have a TV. Most assume I'm making a statement about the perils of the black box; they often take a few steps backward, as if afraid I will erupt in a volcano of statistics about the number of gory on-screen deaths the average 3-year-old witnesses before naptime. Others might imagine I'm a neo-Luddite - or part of a little-known, blue jeans-wearing Amish cult - and wonder aloud whether I have a computer, or a cellphone, or indoor plumbing. (I have all three.)
Hardly anyone believes my real reason: I'm TV-less not because I'm opposed to television, but because I don't like watching it.
I blame the disbelief on the peculiar position television occupies in our culture. The average American watches about four hours a day. At the same time, we're constantly told that TV is bad for us. It's making us fat, stupid, and violent. It's destroying our attention spans and our ability to think critically. It's the number one reason that's cited for never getting around to reading Moby-Dick (OK, I made that last one up).
Anytime an activity many people enjoy gets declared unhealthy, those of us who don't enjoy it are looked at a little suspiciously. I suspect our mere existence reminds others that they, too, could go without the fun-but-unhealthy thing - never mind that we ourselves don't feel like we're making a sacrifice. We're still antisocial killjoys.
Yet it's because TV stopped being a fun social experience for me that I lost interest. As a kid, I watched what the other kids were watching, and half my enjoyment of The Cosby Show came from discussing Cliff Huxtable's latest outrageous sweater at recess the next day. But my young adulthood years in the 1990s coincided with an expansion of viewing options and an ensuing fragmentation of viewership. With the dawn of cable, then
So while I didn't throw my set out the window as an act of liberation, I did decide - the last time I moved - that the massive hand-me-down I hadn't watched in two years wasn't going to make the trip. I'll never say never about having one again. But for now, if I'm home alone for an evening, I'd always rather read a . . .
No. I won't say it. There's no way to say I'd rather read a book than watch TV without sounding like I'm giving a sermon, so I'm just not going to say it.
But not watching television has given me empathy for all whose tastes are a bit outside the mainstream - and I suspect that includes most of us in at least one aspect of our lives. Maybe you're a Republican in Massachusetts. Or - horrors! - a Yankees fan. Maybe you firmly believe that cottage cheese is yummier than chocolate. Or maybe you, too, believe Cheers is just something people say before they take a drink. Just like Nip and Tuck are things you do before you go to bed. Right?
Alison Lobron is a frequent contributor to the Globe Magazine. Send comments to magazine@globe.com.
