radio, tv, movies, and internet taken away...

[kyser_soze]

What programme was this? What conditions did they live in exactly?

It was on C4 about 2 or 3 years ago - it was part of a season of similar programmes where a group of famlies were deprived of specific things - one week was salt and sugar) (which was really crazy) and one was with TV and media.

They were at home, monitored by the camera crew...it was a while back now so excuse me for having a hazy memory about it...

 

[girasol]

I'd talk to more people and climb more trees I think...

I'd read a lot more too.

(I would miss internet/movies the most)

 

[kyser_soze]

Good one on answering my second question mate. I have some kind of memory of this programme you talk of, probably that it's been mentioned on urban before.

This was my suspicion that many would not cope. At least initially anyway. I have never understood people who watch five hours or more of the telly every day. It seems like a kind of passive life to me, one where you just do your time, live out your existence until it is no longer. While it might not be a robber of life, i think it's a robber of the miracle of life. Do we want to live life, or just exist in life? And so when people become deprived of this tv, is a major support taken from them? Can they find an alternative support?

Incidentally, erich fromm reckons most people would collapse quite spectacularly (and he wrote that in the 50s).

Nah, it's cos people are lazy and TV is easy.

Latest TV Technology here

 

[Barking_Mad]

books, music, wine and conversation me thinks.

 

[NoEgo]

I'd better not write you a list, it'll go on too long...

Basically i was lucky enough to find myself living in a new town at the same time that i didn't have to work. I never planned to not work, but having come into a bit of money, and then moving to the new town, i just happened to go for two years without working. I discovered that freedom was waking up in the morning, every morning, with nothing you HAVE to do.

I tasted this sweet freedom, and i very much want it back. Only the possesion of enough money can bring it back to me.

Oh btw, cycling in the mountains, golf, photography, writing, reading, beer, footy, pool, mates, internet, music, and also the activity of doing nothing.

And that's just the begining of how i can spend my time when i'm not working.

Fela you don't HAVE to do anything in life if you don't want to, but if one WANTS wealth then one has to go out and create it for oneself. Choosing what to do and what not to do in life is simply a matter of choice, bearing in mind that there is no such thing as a free lunch.

We'd all love to nothing but the things you mention, but someone has to invent and make the TV, create the internet, gain knowledge to write books, brew beer, market the beer, distribute it and sell it, provide healthcare and medicine etc etc.

 

[fractionMan]

I've gone without for months at a time before, and it aint really that much of a problem.

 

[perplexis]

It'd be pretty I'd lots of letters, I'd listen to the stacks of CDs that I haven't properly digested, I've plenty of books to finish as well.
My PhD would probably get finished as well!

The majority of the population might not be able to handle the lack of drivel on TV, but it might help some people to wake up to the world we live in rather than doing the whole work-telly-pass out-work routine. That could be good.

I think my analysis is rather simplistic. I don't really care though

 

[fela fan]

It'd be pretty I'd lots of letters, I'd listen to the stacks of CDs that I haven't properly digested, I've plenty of books to finish as well.
My PhD would probably get finished as well!

The majority of the population might not be able to handle the lack of drivel on TV, but it might help some people to wake up to the world we live in rather than doing the whole work-telly-pass out-work routine. That could be good.

I think my analysis is rather simplistic. I don't really care though

I think your analysis is good, and you are one of the few posters to have answered the second question.

That tv has a lot to answer for...

 

[fela fan]

I've gone without for months at a time before, and it aint really that much of a problem.

But what about your average punter...?

 

[fela fan]

Fela you don't HAVE to do anything in life if you don't want to, but if one WANTS wealth then one has to go out and create it for oneself. Choosing what to do and what not to do in life is simply a matter of choice, bearing in mind that there is no such thing as a free lunch.

We'd all love to nothing but the things you mention, but someone has to invent and make the TV, create the internet, gain knowledge to write books, brew beer, market the beer, distribute it and sell it, provide healthcare and medicine etc etc.

Mate, i'm not that pissed right now, but happily so, but i don't actually understand what you're saying here...! Can you explain further?

 

[samk]

People wouldn't collapse, society might. Random violence would probably be the most popular alternative entertainment, especially if alcohol is still around.

 

[fela fan]

People wouldn't collapse, society might. Random violence would probably be the most popular alternative entertainment, especially if alcohol is still around.

Uh? Society IS people.

I don't actually think society would collapse, i think the opposite might happen. Without that brainwashing, hypnotic, seductive little box in the corner, folk would need to find other ways of getting through their lives.

 

[parallelepipete]

Imagine if you will:

no radio, tv, movies, internet for a month.

Two questions to answer:

how would you cope with this?

and how do you imagaine the majority of the population would cope?

By coping i mean what would happen to you and what would happen to the majority of people.

Mrs P and I have recently moved to Oz, and so – what with hanging around in airports on stand-by, then crashing on the floor of friends out here who have never had a TV anyway, then waiting once we'd found somewhere to live until we had the phone line reconnected and broadband activated – it's been about three weeks without the net. Since I normally end up listening to the radio via the net anyway, and we don't have a radio, we were without our daily fix of Radio 3 and 4.

OK, so we could have used net cafés, but that's not practical for anything more than webmail. Mrs P wasn't too worried, but I do a lot of my reading online - checking out my favourite blogs, catching up with the news etc. and that was quite frustrating. Makes you realise how you automatically turn to the net to look up things which are probably just as easy to find in a phone book! As for not being able to listen to Late Junction or Today, that's probably the worst bit of being offline.

As for TVs, Mrs P and I have tacitly decided that we can't be bothered with one anyway. I really don't miss it. I'm a net addict anyway

I was going to suggest: join a library and get ploughing through those shelves. This is what we've now done; but of course you need proof of address to join up, which we didn't have until we had received initial bills etc., by which time we were back online anyway!

As for your second question: badly, I suspect. Some of that simply because some people read books amazingly seldom, so they've lost the habit of getting lost in a good story; some is because TV especially is far too easy to switch on and goggle at, and I think it's done a lot of harm to people's range of hobbies and activities; and some because the net especially is an intrinsic part now of the way we communicate and do business.

 

[Andy the Don]

Imagine if you will:

no radio, tv, movies, internet for a month.

Two questions to answer:

how would you cope with this?

and how do you imagaine the majority of the population would cope?

By coping i mean what would happen to you and what would happen to the majority of people.

What a disaster, we would have to actually talk to each other.. or even read a book..

 

[fear-n-loathing]

Think i'd be ok don't watch any telly or films... i'd miss the radio i think but I've got a pile of books to get through so that would keep me busy for a month reckon... of coarse being in IT i'd be made redundant so that would pose a few problems with money I suppose...

 

[fela fan]

Think i'd be ok don't watch any telly or films... i'd miss the radio i think but I've got a pile of books to get through so that would keep me busy for a month reckon... of coarse being in IT i'd be made redundant so that would pose a few problems with money I suppose...

No, no problems, one door closes another one opens. There are quite a few ex-IT people in my profession, and they all profess to have enjoyed the swap.

[teaching english. and there will never ever be a shortage of custom!]