Growing up without a TV: Is it still possible?

Foto: Lucrezia Carnelos/Unsplash

How possible is it to truly disconnect from the screens that populate our everyday lives and influence our habits? The TV screen is perhaps the most traditionally hated one out there. To have grown up without a TV is somewhat of a badge of honor for some of us. But is that experience still possible?

"What is it like to grow up without being allowed to watch television?"

I imagine that the person who posted this question on quora.com can be one of two possible people. They're either someone who was born in the 2000s, and they have been brought up in the age of rampant tech and social media use. Or they're someone born in the 80s or 90s, and they have been so connected to screens throughout their lives, whatever purpose they served, and whatever shape and the medium they came in, that they have never contemplated their absence. I, for one, fit into the latter category. 

That is not to say that I've never lived a life where screens, or in this particular case, the TV screen, has never been absent. As a matter of fact, growing up in the 90s, in Eastern Europe, with two mildly conservative parents who emulated much of the parenting techniques considered appropriate under the communist regime, the TV has always been the leverage the adults in my life had on me. 

Every time I did something wrong, I got myself into a stupid fight, broke a window, ran away with another kid's toy, used foul language, lied, or didn't perform well enough in school, my" TV rations" were suspended until further notice. The problem was that I did not care much for it. No TV? Cool. No problem. I was so quick to adapt and find other ways to entertain myself that my parents, as I have later come to find out from their own accounts of the situation, became somewhat desperate. 

Cutting TV time just wasn't enough. I would bury my nose into books, puzzles, drawings, or even homework. And if I felt like performing some other evil deed I would do so (though most of the times I would stay put and let everything blow over). I didn't think much of it back then. Still, the more technology has advanced over the years, I have come to realize that growing up without TV has taught me a lot. You could also say that it has even educated me when it comes to breaking the connection we have with screens (if possible, without feeling like we're falling down a dark and bottomless pit of social anxiety.

The question posted on quora.com bears the tags" Raising Healthy Children" and" What Was It Like To X?", amongst others. This brings into focus two facts when it comes to screen time and our everyday lives. First, we believe that screens are inherently bad for children, and second, we exhibit a particular type of nostalgia towards a time when screens were not so interconnected and inseparable, and they were also more accessible (or so they appeared) to eliminate from our digital diet. Those were the times when TV was king. 

Everything boils down to the TV screen because it was the first screen to reach every home worldwide. It was also the first screen people actively rebelled against. In her 2017 book, Media Resistance, Trine Syvertsen talks about the TV-free America organization, founded in 1994, as one of the early forms of media resistance. With the help of legislators, TV-free America annually organized national TV-turnoff weeks during which the communities could disconnect and rid themselves of the evil influence of television. The movement has since rebranded itself and changed its targets according to the times. The TV screen is not the only demon lurking in the shadows anymore. So TV-turnoff weeks have now become Screen-Free Weeks. People are encouraged to turn off their screens and turn their attention to offline life. Children are again brought into focus as parents struggle to ration their screen time and spike their interest in outdoor or practical activities. It's one thing to decide on limiting your screen time as an adult when you realize that your phone, you TV and your laptop are taking too much of your headspace, and it's a whole different battle to stand in the way of a child's curiosity and feeling of need towards screens.

To understand what this disconnection from screens (including the TV one) as a form of education or punishment can give birth to, we only have to ask ourselves what exactly are we disconnecting ourselves or others from. 

One of the answers rated as most relevant for the question on quora.com brings up the following:" So we had a tv at home but my brother and I almost never watched. We maybe got half an hour on weekends but it was mostly used to watch movies when we were spending time together as a family. (…) It strangely alienated me from my friends because I had no idea what they were talking about when they discussed Lost or Friends or Greys Anatomy and I was considered odd or even worse felt sorry for. When I went to college I suddenly "discovered" TV and I went nuts and binged. (…) I wish I had gotten a chance to watch more tv at home since the novelty would have worn off that way. However, who knows -maybe if I had grown up watching tv I wouldn't have graduated with straight As and gone to the college of my dreams. I guess we will never know!". 

In other words, growing up without a TV can do both good and bad, and we can not anticipate which of the two is more likely to happen and tho whom. Some people have compared prohibiting TV and other screens to forbidding children and teenagers to drink or smoke. But they're not the same thing. If you don't drink and/or smoke, you don't miss on entire cultural conversations and quite possibly on a piece of your childhood or teenagehood. I would also argue that it is impossible to grow up without a TV any more since TV is now everywhere and tightly connected to every aspect of our social life – a massive chunk of which happens strictly online. I'm afraid that whoever is growing up in today's world, which is another way to say "kids these days," don't have the chance to be brought up, even by accident, into a tradition of rebellion against screens. All that is left is to go online and ask what it was like for others.