tele-life

I was thinking recently about how those who grew up in the 50s have the uniquely privileged position of belonging to both pre-TV and post-TV society. These people know a world I never will--one without television. They know what it is to have a lazy afternoon stretch infinitely before them, permeated by a quiet that no longer exists. They know a silence and a loneliness that cannot be replicated. We can turn off or even choose not to own televisions, but still their secondhand white noise exerts a kind of influence on us, clamoring

for a position in our brains.
Please stop to imagine life before TV. If you want, stretch out before radio. There was no such thing as immediate communication. Letters were about the quickest you got. It really takes mental acrobatics to imagine this kind of life. And it makes me want to shed a little tear when I think about how it is absolutely irretrievable. I can write the letters (only to get texts in return!), get rid of the tv, keep the radio off, but still technology and webs of communication shape my life.
That's not even thinking about the Internet, although maybe we should. My generation may very well someday be the subject of a rant like this one. I remember my first experiences with the Internet-sitting in a study in my friends house, on Instant Messenger, in 1994. I was ten. The Internet stayed out of the spotlight for several years after that--it was only in high school that it began to truly be an essential part of life for the majority of the population. Perhaps I too occupy an enviable position for having experienced life without the urgency of the Internet. Only time will tell.