Last night we all went out to eat in Bali at a local restaurant, after dinner, I was chatting with the owner of the place. Like all the people I have met in Bali, they are very friendly and seem to be happy people.
We were stood in front of this old TV, it looked similar to the ones from my childhood, and I remarked that when I was little (the 1970’s!!! omg), that there were only 2 channels on the TV. The man laughed and remarked ‘now there are 100’s’.
I used to have a subscription to SKY, which had 100’s of channels. I cancelled that subscription a few years back, as I realised I had become a slave to TV. I was exchanging my real life for a soulless experience.
Apparently we watch on average 4 hours a day of TV!!! That is just over a full 24 hour day a week. When we had just 2 channels, I probably watched an hour or so a day. The rest of the time as a child I played and used my imagination.
The next challenge is that having stopped watching TV, perhaps an hour a week now, I have like many replaced it with the internet, ironic as I am typing a blog that I will publish on the internet for others to read.
It is now time to start replacing time spent looking at the internet, with real life. Don’t get me wrong, I love technology and what it could do. I am also aware of the fact that we kid ourselves that we have changed when we have replaced one soulless experience with another.
If we only had a few things to look at on the internet, like the 2 TV channels of 1970s Britain, think just how much more we could do in life. Just think of all that imagination we would have to use.
Imagination is what brought the human race to where we are, let’s hope the 100’s of channels and billions of web pages do not kill imagination for good.
Philip Dodson 