Parents, is Cable Television Worth It?

This is a rhetorical question being asked by satellite companies, they really just want you to notice their product. Satellite has more options, it can beam over one hundred channels into your living room, your office, or your bedroom and where ever a television can be placed. Cable does the same thing but you can't lay in your backyard on a starry night and see a cable van moving among the stars.

The whole purpose of television is to entertain you. Is it supposed to enlighten you as well? This shouldn't be a rhetorical question. Flipping on the tube for breakfast and using it as an electronic babysitting has become too convenient. Even traditional dinner conversation has been replaced by what is on TV. The problem with the information on television is that it doesn't always mirror what we want to say. Maybe we let it speak for us way to often, the 24/7 information can never replace an actual conversation.

If you could interact with your television would you? I don't mean yelling at it during sporting events or game shows, they can't hear you. Considering the information you got was reliable and you took it as the truth, would you ever question the content. I think that you would, but how do you talk to your television when you don't like what it says. You turn it off.

Most newer made televisions come installed with the "V-Chip". This devise is designed to help the parent or guardian decide by way of the FCC, what programs will be allowed to be viewed. If your TV was made before 1999 then the "V-Chip" technology has not been installed in your set. Want to know how old your television is? Look at the back of your set, it will tell you where it was manufactured. It will also give you the serial number and in the date code box you will find the date your TV was made. You could also give it an overdue birthday present by cleaning it. While you are back there looking at all the information and you notice that your TV is too old to have the "V-Chip" installed, it wouldn't hurt to write down the other information listed, it could become useful someday.

Now back to the question. Why do you pay for television, be it cable or satellite? The standard network channels try their best to offer you programs that they think you will want to watch. Ratings are tallied and based on the products that people are buying due to the commercials, this tells the networks what shows are being watched most. Cable and satellite rely on you to pay for the shows, network relies on consumers to pay for the shows. Either way, the consumer is paying. So what is the cost?

You could mark it in monetary value. Satellite says that cable rates keep climbing, cable says you have to pay for regular channels. Each one wants you to pick the lesser of two evils. Whether you pay for television or not, the cost to your intelligence is what's being taxed. We have become too intolerant to the news telling us in their spin, the newspaper industry is no better. Even internet news is controlled by one or more conglomerates. Short of actually interviewing the person or being an eye witness insures that you are a spectator and are only required to watch and not take an active role in questioning the content. Let's face it, even with eye-witness accounts we still want more of the story.

I'm not saying that everything has to be questioned. But think about what you are being fed, I could title this article, "Does TV make you fat, or just fat headed?" With all the information and entertainment being lined up on the buffet of life, take a day off from your television and really evaluate what's important. You may find yourself lost in a good book instead of a bad TV program.

http://www.fcc.gov/vchip/