Pinging Knight

Hehe, I like the way you phrased that- "haven't been triggering negative comments thus far." I'm sure they look great.

Have you read Bowling Alone? It's a fairly short piece by Harvard professor Robert Putnam on the decay of civic community, its implications, and theories about its causes, and he heavily emphasizes tv and home entertainment. I'll try to find a link, I'd be interested to hear what you think of it.

There's actually a full book based upon the eponymous journal article now, Emily. Quite an interesting read, even if "social capital" is one of the most amorphous terms ever thought of...

Shigs

actually my comparative politics teacher heaped considerable scorn on poor Dr. Putnam. But then he ended the lecture with this object lesson:

"Now you see what he did, though, class? By coining a few terms and a method for quantifying them, he got Harvard and the federal government to give him grants to spend twenty years in Italy talking to people over drinks. That's the part you want to take notes on."

I'm not sure the whole book necessary. Here's the article though.

http://xroads.virginia.edu/~HYPER/DETOC/assoc/bowling.html

Thanks much for the link, Emily. My own thoughts on the matter are not very developed right now, but this article seems very interesting. I am curious about what your comparative politics teacher had to say about Putnam.

I tend to heap my own scorn on Putnam too... but mostly that's because I'm contrary. I've read "Bowling Alone," but I'm inclined to see that my experience does not reflect what he says is happening. TV is a social thing in my life. It's a chance for family or friends to sit down for an hour in the same room and talk during commercials (or the show, unless it's West Wing). I almost never watch TV alone unless I'm totally desperate, and while I do use my computer alone (that being another gadget getting in the way of human interactions) I tend to use it to communicate with people I care about (ala typing this comment.)

I would argue that the nature of human interaction is changing, but as long as we remember that people are more important than machines, we're fine.

That's my two philosophical cents for the day!

I don't so much agree that tvs are taking down culture, but mostly because I think people are so lazy that they would find other ways of amusing themselves that didn't involve wandering far from their homes.

Also, as the whole electrical convenience thing cropped up, it did give people more time in many respects. (Don't have to do things by hand and all) So it also took that time and gave us something to do with it. So maybe we seem to be wasting time away from others, but are actually just wasting time we could be doing something less pleasant.