Do we need to switch off our television sets?

In popular vocabulary Television is also many a times referred to as ‘Idiot Box’. I would argue that it is not justified to endow human characteristics on a non-living entity. A television set only works on the GIGO principle (Garbage In, Garbage Out). More the garbage is fed to it, more the garbage it will spit out. Unfortunately, the amount of garbage that is being thrown into it is on an exponential increase. Not only that, while at least some of us may have begun to segregate the physical garbage that accumulates at our places of residence into various useful categories like ‘Wet waste’, ‘Dry waste’ etc., to be treated in the relevant manner, all such precaution is thrown to the wind while feeding garbage to this inanimate box. So, even the most basic principle of categorization that one could think of, for example, a segregation between what should qualify as ‘News’, as against what should qualify as ‘Entertainment’, completely breaks down in this case. A new category has instead come to be formulated and well-established, that of ‘News for Entertainment’.

In the erstwhile days, before the onset of the ’24-hour news channels’ phenomenon, there used to exist a concept of ‘News-worthiness’. Anything and everything could not qualify as ‘News’. The most pressing issues concerning polity, economy, national and world affairs, sports etc., formed a part of a ‘News-bulletin’. However, with privatization in the media industry, more and more news channels started setting up shops. The News channels soon acquired a 24*7 character. They were as much a part of the blinding TRP race as any other ‘Entertainment’ channel. With these changes, the character of the ‘News’ channels also started merging with that of ‘Entertainment’ channels, so much so that today, there is hardly any parameter left based on which the two categories can be kept apart. For all practical purposes, they have merged into one single entity. The ‘News’ channels today air programs of the likes of ‘Saas, Bahu aur Saazish’. I guess the name is in itself enough to warrant any further explanation of what the content of the program might be. I would not even dare to venture to comment on the ‘news-worthiness’ of this program.

So, while the nation and the world may be undergoing an existential crisis, in terms of the grave situation prevailing as a consequence of environmental, political, economic and social challenges staring the society in its face, shouting out loud for human beings, the genesis of this crisis, to get together and indulge in healthy discussions in order to diffuse all these self-created crisis at least to some extent, the best that a television news channel has to offer us as its prime time weekend show is the story of a worthless spat between two Bollywood film stars. Such is the toxic extent to which the garbage thrown into the box has degenerated.

Whether or not one needs to switch off one’s television set is left to the individual choice, however, the nature of what one is viewing on these sets needs to be understood and internalized in the correct perspective, by each and every individual choosing to keep them switched on.