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With another brutal summer looming here in the South, we all have another reason to stay inside and watch TV. As the average household's viewing time hovers around 16 to 18 hours a day, the question is: Can we ever get enough TV?

Let me turn down the sound on my set and attempt to give a well thought-out answer to that.

The answer is: Of course not. We are all, as typical Americans, empty vessels that require filling constantly, with ideas and emotions and images all the things that TV gives us. We all know the world outside our windows is confusing and annoying, what with its wars and famines and natural disasters and whatnot, and that human relationships can be a regular labyrinth of unresolved conflicts. So why get involved?

TV lets us experience the world without getting caught up in it.

Believe it or not, there was a time when all any TV viewer could get were two or three channels, and none of these were on for 24 hours! In those Dark Ages the only succor for the world-weary traveler through the long, lonely night was a test pattern. Life expectancy then was very short, and the vast general boredom led to such mischief as World War II and the Atomic Bomb.

In the 1950s and 60s television still crept upon its hands and knees, as Americans persisted in such activities as reading and going outdoors. But during and after the Vietnam War, as the world seemed to become a more dangerous place, TV watching took the place of action. Our eyes grew accustomed to the dark and a new generation evolved with built-in glassy-eyed stares and smaller brains, suited for the video environment in which they would spend two-thirds of their lives.

TV is the one constant in many lives. If our jobs are dumb or demeaning, our relationships tenuous, the myriad transactions of everyday commerce humbling or inutterably inane, we can find solace in TV, where ordinary occupations are invested with glamour (or at least comedy), where the grind of daily life becomes the stuff of high drama, and where every problem will work itself out in the space of 30 minutes or an hour, at most.

Any number of (self-appointed) experts will say that we watch too much TV. They urge us to turn off our sets and talk (Sure, so we can hear about someone else's problems!), read (Naturally, since most of them are writers), or get outside into the fresh (Ha!) air. Do anything but enjoy ourselves, in other words. These guardians of our health and happiness are growing more numerous and louder every day. If they keep up, there'll be only one thing to do:

Turn up the volume and drown them out.

Learn more about this author, Paul Erland.
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