Television Shows vs. the Internet and Smartphones

As you may know, the Boy is struggling with a little bit of an internet/smartphone addiction. The problem is that he can get a wee bit crabby when he has to disconnect to eat dinner, go to bed or have a life.

I was talking to a friend and she lumped watching television in with screen addictions. I get it. Growing up I knew people who used to have the television on all day--game shows, soap operas, the news, talk shows, old movies, and sports. Newton Minow famously called television the vast wasteland, and he was right. He said when television is bad, nothing is worse. He also said when is good, nothing is better. His famous speech to the National Association of Broadcasters in 1961 is boiled down to the "vast wasteland," but it is more complex and rich than that.

My husband is also guilty of too much phone screen time. He read an article in this month's Psychology Today about internet use interfering with marriages and other relationships. Jack told me all about it, and saw his own failings. When he was working last week, I didn't see him much. When he was gone, my mental image of him was a guy looking down at his phone.

Once you start thinking about your own internet use, you see it everywhere else. How can I tell the Boy to stop using his phone when everyone else is looking down? I took the Boy out for coffee recently, and almost everyone waiting in line was looking at their phone. We were at dinner and saw a family of six eating. The family was two grandparents, two parents and two young adult children. Five of them were on their phones, with a few looking at the same phone together. The twenty-something girl had her phone face down on the table. She looked miserable. We thought of asking her to join our table. We saw a couple on a date sitting at a bar. He was on his phone for fifteen minutes. She looked bored. Jack thought about going up and talking to her to see what the dude would do if someone starting hitting on her.

The Boy is not alone. He is surrounded by people who are looking down. We've made smoking illegal in many public places, but you can check your smartphone anywhere.

Smartphones are useful. All in one, they are

• Watches and alarm clocks
• Phones
• Texting devices
• Calendars
• Timers
• Maps
• Music players
• Podcast players
• Email browsers

They are also video game consoles and internet portals.

Stephen Colbert wrote someplace that he advised his kids to watch television, but good television. I thought he was crazy at the time, but now I see his point. Which is better--watching a well scripted television show for twenty minutes or looking up cat memes for twenty minutes?

Yesterday, I friend sent me a text asking me "Dean Martin or Def Leppard?" I spent five minutes googling and I sent her a picture of Jon Bon Jovi in his prime in an Versace ad. (I would post it here, but it is bordering on inappropriate. It doesn't need a blackbox, but almost.) Maybe that is a bad example of internet search searching waste of time because that was fun. But I spend too much time looking up stuff that adds no value to my life. Once at dinner we were discussing high schools and we looked up how many foreign languages were taught at Evanston High School. I need to know this why?

Instead, I'd rather have the Boy and the rest of my family plopped together on the couch to stream a Netflix movie or television series. The kids loved Parks and Rec with Amy Pohler and Chris Pratt. My dad introduced me to Modern Family, which is one of the wittiest things I've seen on television. My parents, especially my mom, have wonderful taste in television shows. She introduced me to Friends in the first season. Her favorite episode was when Joey was in a musical about Sigmund Freud. She watched Seinfeld in the first season, too.

My brother and I watched a lot to television growing up, some good, some awful. We wasted lots of time watching reruns of Green Acres while my mom was upstairs smoking and talking to my grandmother on the phone, but we would also bounce around and play with each other while we watched. My brother and I watched so many episodes of the Brady Bunch we played a game called "Guess the Story." It was like "Name that Tune" where we would see who could identify the plot the fastest based on the opening scene. Unlike the internet, our shows ended and the news came on and we were done. There was nothing to watch, so we turned it off and went upstairs. The internet never ends. There is always more.

Ironically, the best thing now about watching television is the internet, which is where my argument becomes so confusing. We can watch a series like Parks and Rec from start to finish on Netflix without commercial breaks whenever we want. There is a pause button so we can stop to eat dinner and come back where we left off.

What has better writers: the people who script The Colbert Report or the people who write cat memes? Breaking Bad or "Annoying Orange"? I vote for television writers.

So this is my new plot. If my son wants screen time, I am trying to tune him into television instead of the smartphone.