Although I'll be 80 years old next year, I am no technophobe: to prove it, I have three PCs (why?), two laptop computers (why?) and two mobile phones. Plus a CD player with all the peripherals, and a portable DVD player. I listen to CDs. I play my violin (occasionally), I read paper books of which I have hundreds, I read books on my Kindle (wherein lie probably another hundred). All alone in the civilised world: I do not have a television, and have not had one for over 30 years now.
Music CDs are fine: you insert them in the player, push “start” and listen to Kreisler playing Kreisler, or whatever. If you are interested in the names of the recording engineers and the transfer artist, you can read it later in the booklet. Books are fine, either on a Kindle or on paper. You can skip over the boring bits of text (“get on with the plot!”). If you are really interested in the names of the editors, sub-editors and typesetters, you can usually look this up later. But DVDs of films are another planet. You have to endure endless lists of those who did the make-up and the hair styling, and whatever else, and there is no skipping. (At least, there probably is, but every time I touch a DVD player button I find myself back at the beginning of the film, with all the stuff about hair stylists, or whatever). From family visits, I have gathered that television is far worse: no “fast forward” button so one has to endure endless adverts for sanitary products, or news bulletins where the only thing of real interest comes at the end of the bulletin after twenty minutes of trivia. One good reason I don't have a television (I get my news from the Web, where I can skim and skip). I like skimming and skipping. No one under the age of 60 will understand my aversion to video programmes. I am currently watching (on my portable DVD player) a Swedish television adaption of Henning Mankell's Wallender books. Well done, but I have to watch all the stuff that is of no interest to me. If I go back to the books on my shelves, I can skim ! Different planets.
2 comments:
I am happy to illustrate, if only by the mechanism of the rare exception, that you are wrong that no one under the age of 60 will understand your aversion to video programs.
I am 58 and completely agree. I have not had a television for 25 years.
But I do enjoy film, though not within the straitjacket, as you describe, of the commercial players that seem designed to inflict their own dose of ads, descriptive frippery, and other annoyances. So instead, I use software on my computer that is not so encumbered to watch videos, with liberal use of the arrow keys to bypass the nonsense, which is an intolerable and irrecoverable tax on my time and patience otherwise. And with e-books I can use text search to find and revisit sections and to zero in on the treatment of topics beyond what most indices (for books fortunate enough to have them) provide.
To skimmers and skippers! You are not alone.
I'm happy to hear I am not alone in my likes and dislikes !
Post a Comment