So These BYU Students Walk Into a Restaurant...

[tmcg]

On the one hand, there's TV-B-Gone. On the other, there's Informera:

Two Brigham Young University students are waiting for a table in an Orem restaurant. One turns to the other and complains, "There must be something better than just sitting around."

Um...

Having an actual conversation?

Comments

[janni.livejournal.com]

I'm torn between the rudeness of using a TV Be Gone on others, and the rudeness of the fact that others insist on inflicting TV on me, in my debates whether to buy one.

I think for many people concepts like "quiet" and "not accustomed to TV as background noise" no longer quite exist. What's wrong with silence, anyway?

[fionagh.livejournal.com]

I never had a TV growing up and I find them hugely annoying when they're on in the background. I prefer to watch a TV show and then turn it off. I'm also horribly susceptible to video fixation on commercials because I haven't built up an immunity to them. So I will stare, transfixed, literally unable to move, as the images of commercials assail me. It's realy annoying.

[stevendj.livejournal.com]

Oh no! Now the supervillains know your secret weakness, Fiona! What were you thinking????

[terrymcgarry.livejournal.com]

I also find it hard not to look at a flickering TV screen if there's one in view. My eye is just drawn to it. It's very distracting.

[terrymcgarry.livejournal.com]

I've been wondering what's wrong with silence for a long time. Partly the answer is "Nothing--but it's a perfect space to inject advertising." When The New Yorker's offices were above Bryant Park, we were subjected in the middle of every day to amplified events--music (sometimes soothing, sometimes not), screaming abrasive comedians, and so on. You couldn't just go down to the park at lunchtime anymore and sit and eat your sandwich listening to the rustle of wind in the leaves. You couldn't hear yourself think at your desk, windows open or closed. The only reason I could see for noise-polluting a perfectly nice park that way was PR and advertising.

Partly I think that there's an assumption that people simply can't sit quietly anymore, but have to be stimulated. The TV at the post office, the TV in the doctor's waiting room...I mean, really, guys, I was happy with the old issues of National Geographic, okay?