The Boob Tube

Television is a staple in most households around the U.S. and other modern countries. Statistics show that the average household has 2.93 television sets and that in 2009 there were more television sets in homes then there were people. The development of the television started in 1873 with the discovery of photo-conductivity in selenium and the technology is still being improved upon. At first televisions weren't practical at all, it required massive machines and technology just to transmit an image the size of a business card. Television sets weren't commercialized until around 1940's and didn't see a real take off until after World War Two because of bans on manufacturing. When televisions first started taking hold in the U.S. market the average person couldn't afford one but after the bans were lifted and mass manufacturing was possible the market exploded making T.V.s affordable for most. In 1946 only 0.5% of U.S. households had a television set, in 1954 55.7% had one, and 90% of households owned one by 1962. By now I would challenge you to find a house or apartment without a television in it, with exceptions to the Amish, and some hippie or religious fanatics. The technology of television has made it accessible to find information and programming from throughout the world from the comfort of your living room. It is the main source of entertainment and information for the majority of Americans today. I would encourage anyone to abstain from watching television for a week just to take a step back and see the impact it has on the average person's life.

I'm a fairly busy person; between working a fulltime job, going to school, family, friends, and my significant other I really didn't think I watched T.V. very much, that is until I gave it up. Every morning I wake up and automatically turn on the news to see the forecast and traffic reports to see what the day might hold. I base my clothing and route I take to work on the information I have gathered. Without this I had to turn to alternative ways, luckily I have a smart phone so weather wasn't a problem, I didn't feel like wasting the time to look up traffic on my phone so I just played it safe and left for work a bit earlier. Without my phone or computer I would of never known the weather and could of dressed improperly for the conditions, luckily for the week I never hit any horrendous traffic or I could have been late to work. Once I get off work on non-school nights; I take care of my pets, shower, decide what to make for dinner, and see if I need to do any homework. If I don't have any homework and haven't called any of my friends or found something productive to do I normally just lay in bed after a long day and watch cable television, netflix, or play my xbox. All of those require the television so I couldn't do any of those in my spare time. Luckily I love to read so I finished a book I've been reading, but I couldn't just read the whole time so I found myself looking for things to do instead of just doing things when I deemed them necessary. To be honest I should of done this sooner. I reorganized my bookshelf, my room, my bathroom, and many other things; I made my environment more comfortable and organized even though up until now I thought things were pretty efficient.

I work outside and love the outdoors and being active. Sometimes after a long especially draining or hot day I end up laying in bed and not doing much else because my body is so tired. On days such as these if my friends were to call me and want to do something sometimes I would tell them I was too tired and didn't want to do much of anything. Once I took the entertainment out of laying in my bed and resting it wasn't as bearable, yea I enjoyed giving my body a rest but I would get extremely restless just laying there reading or on my computer. I found myself going long boarding more and hanging out with my friends