Koroviev Posted October 20, 2015 Posted October 20, 2015 I keep forgetting that I want to post this so finally here it is the Zen TV Experiment. One of the other podcasts I listen to bring it up about once a year just as a reminder and I don't think it's gotten out enough. I highly recommend trying the experiment for yourself rather than just reading through the material I will warn you though it may make you not want to watch TV. http://www.spack.org/words/zentv.html I'd love to hear your thoughts.
dsayers Posted October 20, 2015 Posted October 20, 2015 As I read, I was surprised to see little reference to laugh tracks. Then I saw the copyright date. Nothing really ground-breaking, but the way it put a couple ideas was interesting. Half of what it said could be applied to reading also, so it was unclear as to where it was going. I've never been much for television programming in my adult life. I've always preferred controlled media. Tapes and discs rather than TV or radio. It's probably been close to two decades since I watched something in a way I didn't have the power to fast forward or rewind. In more recent times, it seems like there's been a much larger push for such things. Like there's just so much more "must see" TV. It's acted as a turn-off for me and I watch even less as a result. Although I enjoy it more with self-knowledge because it's like practice for spotting coercion, abuse, logical fallacies, and so on. While I tend towards activities where I'm more in control, there are times when I'll partake out of abnegation. So I guess it helped me in pointing out that it's not actually downtime. Though I will say that I disagreed with the part about how every moment has to be engaging. I've always been against the obnoxious and the over-the-top. I almost always prefer a movie that uses pacing to make you think, rather than just perpetually shoving stimulus down your throat.
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