Have you ever thought about what your life would be like without television? TV is a part of all our lives now, even for those who choose not to have a set in their homes; it has changed our culture tremendously. Television makes our lives more immediate; we can know about important events going on all over the world just by clicking on a channel and looking into the lives of others. Although many may think television has become too invasive and has changed our culture in a negative way, it has also been used to educate and teach us about things we would have never known if we were living in previous times.
During the Middle Ages, people usually did not venture farther than a half day's journey away from their home villages. Many people never went farther than that during their whole lives. News traveled very slowly, and it was sometimes several months or even years before a messenger or traveler would come through a remote village and tell the people about the results of wars, new kings being crowned, and other important events. Average people back then lived in a perpetual state of unawareness of current events; they probably knew intimately the affairs of their neighbors, but international news made no impact on their daily lives, at least not until the taxman came around.
It's interesting to think how some of the events of past history would have been covered by television news shows. Imagine seeing Michelangelo painting the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel on a CNN feature story, or an interview with Frederick Barbarossa on his way to the Crusades. How about a reality show featuring some young people who had fled to the Italian hills to avoid the plague? Survivor would have had contestants roughing it in the newly-discovered Americas, and a soap opera of Henry VIII and his wives or the court of Louis XIV would have been popular mid-day fare. Would absolute kings have been able to stay in power if television cameras had been documenting their every move? Doubtful!
I read a story in a newspaper about some very poor citizens of Mexico who lived in a landfill. They lived in shacks made of paper and tin and other materials they found in the piles of garbage, but they did have electricity. One of the photos showed an open door to a shack, and inside was a television, its picture gleaming in the darkness of the windowless hovel. A television is almost a necessity for most people today, and one of the first things that teenagers, newlyweds, and those moving into new homes buy.
Televisions serve as friends to the lonely, can make people happy and sad, or angry and apathetic. Can we believe all we see on TV? TV is a powerful tool, and is a tool that can be used for good or for no good. Is it today's equivalent of the ancient Romans' "bread and circuses?" We don't have to leave our homes, or even a room, to be voyeurs of the world, to travel to faraway places, to see people grieving or jumping for joy all over the globe. Television, you have changed our lives forever. What's next?
