By the time I had my first experience of TV, I was in high school. Because I was at boarding school, my viewing was strictly controlled. Added to that was the rigorous government censorship in place, meaning that what was screened tended to be pretty inoccuous stuff.

I’m not sure that TV shaped me to any extent, but I now watch several forensic type programmes (Bones, NCIS and all flavours of CSI) as well as a hilarious topical news quiz called Have I got News for You and an equally hilarious review of current events called Mock the Week.

I suspect these last two programmes are moulding my teenagers into a greater measure of critical thinking about current events than might otherwise have been the case.

Other than that, I’ll look for a movie or a good documentary. We’re being treated to a fabulous one at present called the Story of Maths, which is fascinating!

I have to say though — that our misconceptions (such as families are perfect like the Brady’s or the Cartwrights), that the bluest sky is in Seattle, etc etc. continue even now.

Not all kids have sex before they exit High School, not all Christians are fanatics, people who are stranded for 30 days on an island are not really stranded, and I doubt that it is possible that someone will appear on your doorstep and offer your family the opportunity to win $500,000. (Though as a youngster I did believe that Hobo Kelly might one day put a present in my washing machine!)

I do think that TV not only molded us — but melded us as well. Do you remember hurrying to work to discuss certain shows, staying riveted by the tv during the space shuttle disasters, watching the royal wedding? Our lives were shared with others because of what we viewed. Whether it was simplistic or realistic, we lost ourselves in tv land at times during the week and then found ourselves again by discussing what we saw.

I enjoyed this post, the thoughts it created, the memories — and the understanding that those of us in our 40′s and 50′s do have memories that breed familiarity!! Thanks for taking the time to post.

Jennifer Wagner

ps — do you remember when Rosalynd Shays plunged down the elevator shaft!! Now THAT was a watercooler conversation for sure!

I watched quite a bit of television when I was young, and was shaped by shows like the Thunderbirds (and, I guess, Bugs Bunny and Road Runner, but Thunderbirds was by far and away my favorite).

I was upset when Kennedy was assassinated, because that’s all there was on TV – my cartoons were canceled. I remember Expo 67 and the Six-Day War, the Moon Landing, the Munich Olympics, and much more.

But then in middle school I stopped watching TV almost completely. I would watch the occasional program, but I spent much more of my time in my room, reading, playing and making games (esp. Strat-O-Matic baseball) with my brothers, making projects, etc.

I have a TV in my room for a couple of years in my teens, but when I left home at 18 I left the TV behind – and did not have one again for almost 10 years (I didn’t have a bed either; I slept on the floor). The entire tim I went to university I read books, listened to music, or (later) worked on my computer.

I’ve had a TV for the last 10 or 15 years, but I hardly watch it – my attention is no longer focused on the box. It’s background noise that amuses me as I focus my attention – and my learning – on the computer. And when I finally got an iPod a few years ago, music flooded back into my life like it never had before.

From my perspective, the main result of my minimal TV viewing is that it made me… different.

There’s a lot of things a lot of people believe that I’m pretty sure were, if you will, ‘programmed’ into them – some intentionally, some unintentionally. Attitudes, forms of reasoning, background beliefs, judgments.

I’m not one to linger on the ‘net generation’ literature a whole lot either. But let me tell you what I see when I see them. What I see is the *absence* of that ‘programming’ that I see in the television generation.

And… forget the rest of it. That one fact gives me hope.