Jay Rosen points to a thought-provoking speech in which Clay Shirky likens American television to a gin bender that unfortunately has lasted half a century.
All those hours wasted on mind-numbing trash. How many hours? He calculates "two hundred billion hours, in the U.S. alone, every year," and projects that's enough to create the equivalent of 2,000 Wikipedia projects, assuming Wikipedia encapsulates "100 million hours of human thought."
I certainly agree about the waste of human potential represented by the time we devote to television, which I also think is a major factor in corroding the social fabric of America by keeping us from talking to each other.
I wish I could be so optimistic about our liberation and our future, but my straight-A girls have fallen under the spell of "America's Next Top Model," which my cable system seems intent on running nonstop until either Armageddon or we run out of electricity, whichever comes first.
(I defend my BSG addiction on the grounds that it's artistic commentary on current events and human nature.)
Comments
Steve - Of course you can
Steve -
Of course you can always watch BSG online the next morning or anytime afterwards. I cut off my Dish in a move to be more productive and pay off the credit cards. You could go that route but it sounds like you might have a insurrection on your hands.
Still mad at NBC for pulling off BSG from iTunes,
Matthew