Watching Clay Shirky speak about the pitfalls of TV may not seem like you want to do, but believe me, it will change how you think about your favorite pass time.
During his speech, which can be found on Making Light, he throws around a couple of figures. The first of which, is that the Wikipedia project took about 100 million hours of man time to create. Then he compares that with the amount of time we, as Americans, spend watching TV each year: 200 billion. He preaches what we could do with that time, if we devoted it to something constructive rather than just passively sitting on the couch. Even games, yes video games, he says, are more productive–the thirty year old man pretending to be an elf in his mothers basement–is better than watching TV. I would have to agree.
But the point here, isn’t that we should be playing more video games; and not that we should cut TV out of our lives. The point is that we should remove some of our passive time, and replace it with something worth while. A blog, taking the kids to the park, writing a book, working on Wikipedia, teaching someone, playing an insturment, et cetera. If we moved even one percent of the 200 billion hours we spend watching TV, think of the amount that could be accomplished with those 2 billion hours.
Later in the video, he speaks of someone’s four year old daughter running behind the TV and looking for a mouse. This is because society is now being raised to interact with media. Kids do not want to sit passively by, they want to be a part of it. Don’t you?
Watch the video and let me know what you think.