30 days without T.V., Radio. or Newspaper
T.V, Gary's Blog January 30th, 2007
I never set out to do this experiment, 30 day without any kind of media besides the Internet, it just happened. Since the thirty days ( and counting) have passed my social media life has become defunct and some part of my soul reserved for Brittany Spears, George Bush, Movies and other types of media has been long forgot .My life is now full of articles for Althack, a little of Digg for tech news, the WII, and the addictive Guitar Hero. Imagine not having any information on what is going on in the world and worse yet not knowing what movies are playing.
As I moved into my new residence back at the beginning of the year my roommates and I decided it was more valuable to have cable Internet then cable, hence the beginning of Missing Media Syndrome (MMS) as i call it. The cable being gone wasn’t so bad, after all I still had the radio and Internet to keep up with all the current events, notice the word had.
A week or two after moving in, someone who still remains elusive took my radio antenna on my car at an un-godly hour (teenage children i believe). Now this posed quite a problem, since I am lazy and didn’t want to go buy an antenna for the car just to have it stolen again, so since am a big boy and do what i want, I didn’t. That was a big mistake, as that really was my only source of daily events. ( Personal note: Looking back a 17 dollar would have probably paid for itself as my singing while in the car is off key and horrible).
So here I am no radio, no T.V. and no newspaper for thirty days. Personally I am proud I went thirty days without these sources of news considering my roommates and I when living at different places, (alright I’ll admit it, our parents) had the luxury of hitting a button and having all the news, even if slightly mis-interrupted by the media, at our control. We could watch G4, CNN, Fox, ABC. CBS, and Adult Swim. At the push of a button all our our media needs were fulfilled. The 4400, Grey’s Anatomy, Family Guy, Lost, Sponge Bob Square Pants,and all the ridiculous reality shows were there. Now I push a button and I get static, I push it again I get Snow much like the life of a MMS person.
Much is the same for the Radio, the last song I heard on the radio was Irreplaceable and Hinders new song, (which is probably not new anymore and overplayed). It almost seems that the power button to my media life has been turned off for the time being.
When you delete media from your life you lose a lot, even simple things like what things are on sale. What car lots in your area are having sales, (sorry buying a car soon). Movies, Commercials, Radio Ads, all gone. Even my social life is somewhat suffering. Imagine Monday morning everyone sitting around the water cooler, “What president Bush said in his address was wonderful/horrible, what do you think Gary”? “Umm…i didn’t watch it, maybe I’ll catch it on Youtube tonight”. Or “wow, what a great episode of lost last night”. “Really, what happened”. “Nothing it isn’t on yet” as they all point and laugh at the man who has no media soul.
I know this article has made media sound like a god to me. There are also pros of having no media in my life. I have no idea what is going on in Iran or Iraq, I don’t watch the news and hear about how this person was murdered or this girl was raped. I don’t hear how they found child pron on some elementary teachers home computer or how one is doing naughty things with 14 year old students. It is like a little naive bubble live in. There could be a warning not to drink the water due to poison and I would wake up gulp down water never the wiser and live my last few minutes in bliss not know that appending doom is ten minutes away.
Without the radio in the car, I ‘ve noticed all those little clanks and sounds that you don’t hear (or like most of us don’t wanna hear). My driving has gotten better, I am less likely to have road rage and my singing has gotten better (slightly).
To say the least my life is better in some ways due to no media other than the Internet and worse in other ways. The only thing that I can say after this experiment, that was never supposed to be an experiment, is that I believe you can live without media but it is very hard transition and I am soooooo stoked about the Cleveland Browns going to the Super Bowl, at least that is what I have heard from close friends that keep me in the media loop!!
March 22nd, 2007 at 12:07 pm
Hey Gary! Great article. I myself have been doing the same thing for a few months now. No radio (because I was never really in to listening to the radio, too many ads, etc.), no newspaper (except for the occasional best buy or future shop flyer) and no TV since my dad cut the satellite. I do however have the most powerful media gateway at my fingertips right now: a connection to the internet. The internet is where everything starts to come together. Streaming radio stations, streaming internet TV, podcasts, vidcasts, online newspapers, youtube, google video, digg, slashdot, and, yes, advertisements, have kept me in the loop for a proud ~3 months. I think anyone with a little knowledge of the stuff you can find on the internet could easily ’survive’ with just an internet connection. I suppose the argument could be made that listening to streaming radio or watching streaming TV is cheating, because it is pretty much the same as listening to real radio or watching real TV, but hey, it works. And for free! I wouldn’t be able to tell you how much money we’ve saved at my house for not having cable or satellite, not to mention reading the newspaper for free online (I don’t do this but my parents do) and it is something of a miracle to be able to watch reruns of Star Trek: TNG on Spike TV for FREE using the TVU player, which is basically a few live streaming tv networks available on the internet (www.viidoo.com). Solely using the internet for current information and entertainment is great, and cheap! After all, the internet is a series of tubes.
-Mark
March 22nd, 2007 at 10:01 pm
thanks mark still going somewhat strong on the no tv and as for the radio i ended up getting the antenna fixed but still don’t really listen to it. I am currently searching for a bunch of sites that people like you and I can go to watch tv or listen to music without paying high cost. eventually i c cable becoming an extension of the internet, pcs with video cards hooked to T.V. streaming over tv shows, kinda like tivo or dvr. i think this would be a great company to start as i see more people coming to the realization that tv can be had for free with less commercials. it is good to have feedback on this article it is keeping me going strong on resisting the forces of cable
March 23rd, 2007 at 5:09 am
I stopped watching the TV news a while back and feel a lot better for it! I do have a few programs I still watch: Nova, Bones, CSI, and NCIS, but that’s about it. I do slip once in a while and posts like yours gets me back on board the less TV route!! Thanks!!!
PS” It is nice to see that @althack is back after a long absents!
June 20th, 2007 at 11:23 pm
i miss CSI!!!!! thank you right now it is really slow we really haven’t got all the way back into producing great articles but soon we will i promise
September 21st, 2007 at 6:39 pm
I’ve been doing this for the past 6 years. Sure, I’ll take a peak at the newspaper, see what best buy is trying to sell me. The only radio I hear, I’m forced to hear at work (grocery store, go figure.) If I want music, I’ll pop in a cd or listen to my growing list of mp3’s.
Any life-threatening or otherwise important news I hear from close family or friends.
It really is nice living in that naive bubble.
June 4th, 2008 at 6:18 pm
I hadn’t realized it was a big deal. I have been living without pop culture for years. I just thought it was common sense.
June 13th, 2008 at 9:59 pm
TVs not really too awesome. The news is ~really~ overrated. Whens the last time you can recall your own up-to-date opinion having any bearing on the outcome of anything the news reports on? Besides, watching bad shit on the news is bad for personal morale. Did you know that the inventor of the TV reflecting on his acheivment felt that he had “invented a great way to waste a lot of time?”