TV Everywhere

[xela]

I started this morning in the waiting room at Herb Chambers Honda, where I took Alyse's car for some work.* I sat in the waiting room took out my laptop, and started trying to do some work. But even thought I'd chosen the seat furthest from the TV, it kept intruding on my consciousness, especially the Republican hate ads. I noticed that nobody else seemed to actually be watching it, and only two people were in the part of the waiting room that had chairs facing the screen. So I went over to ask them if they'd mind if I turned it off. One didn't care, but the other (though sitting with his head turned away from the screen, apparently reading the Herald, said "I like to listen to the news."

Just then, a particularly annoying ad came on, so I packed up my laptop and headed out to find breakfast. Somehow failed to notice the the TV in the dining room as I ordered at the counter, and now find my digestion ruined by a CNN story about one of her fans presenting Sarah Palin with pink underwear. (For crying out loud, this non-entity is so unworthy of serious attention that even her fans treat her as trivial.)

What the hell is wrong with people that they accept and even like this constant intrusion of gibberish? Is it really so terrifying to be able to hear yourself think?

---

* Yes, I know better. I don't normally go to a car dealership for service; IME a good independent shop is invariably both better and cheaper. But they're having a $10 oil change special, and the car needs some other work where I thought taking it to a Honda specialist would be best.

Comments

[dpolicar]

I blessedly had a room all to myself for most of the time I was in rehab, but for the last week or so I had a roommate who had shattered his leg or something like that.

(It took me a while to understand that he hadn't experienced brain damage... I sort of had brain damage on the mind, of course, but also he did not seem all there. Later I got to chat with his mom, and it turns out that he's always been like that. Anyway...)

Roomie was a TV-listener-to. As in, he would enter the room, turn the television on, and make a phone call... he just seemed to need the television on.

Ordinarily, I can tune out television in order to concentrate on something, but that was absolutely not an option at that point in my recovery... under the best of circumstances, I wasn't really able to concentrate.

He drove me fucking mad.

Fortunately, after a couple of days he discovered that the TV in the lounge had more channels than the one in our room, and I sort of never saw him again.

[goldsquare.livejournal.com]

This year, for holiday gifts, I'm buying a TV B Gone for family.

You should get one for yourself: it's a key-fob thing that broadcasts shut-off codes for almost all brands of TV.

[dcltdw]

*giggle* No, wait, that has to be a myth.

*googles*

Oh my god, it's real? That thing exists?

Hmmm.... hmmmmmmm.......

[yakshaver.livejournal.com]

Wow. Part of me is like OMG, that's brilliant! And part of me goes but it would be really obnoxious to actually use it. Not, of course, that having a TV blaring in a space people are essentially trapped in isn't obnoxious already.....

[goldsquare.livejournal.com]

There is no great good that can be done, that some won't but think ill of it.

You know you want one. :-)

[kareila]

FWIW the only place I've really noticed this is in waiting rooms - at car dealerships and occasionally, if I'm unlucky, in a hospital. But yeah, it's air pollution. I deal with it by making sure I have my iPod and earbuds with me.

Most low-budget restaurants in my area have ESPN on TV all the time, which I suppose is no less obnoxious if you don't care for sports.

As to why, I suspect it's less out of fear of having to think and more out of fear of having no excuse not to interact with the other people in the room.