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The
Age of Missing Information, by
Bill McKibben.
In 1990 ecologist Bill McKibben undertook
an experiment: watch 24 hours of television broadcast on
one day on all the channels of his home's cable
system (over 90 channels), spend 24 hours camped by a mountaintop
near a small pond, and compare and contrast the information
gained on each day. Naturally, the 24-hour cable day lasted
much longer than one day, as the author needed to gather
numerous videotapes from friends and colleagues and then
spend weeks and months watching what could only be imagined
as a lot of the same. But he patiently watched every minute
(minus reruns), even commercials, and documents a fraction
of it here.
McKibben's findings -- that the information
television gives us is not a substitute for the information
we discover living directly with our natural surroundings
-- is not groundbreaking; if anything one gets the notion
that it wouldn't take the equivalent of 93 24-hour days
to reach this conclusion. Nevertheless, he is able to touch
on a variety of misinformation, if you will, that is perpetuated
15+ years to this day and make this book all the more valuable,
especially as television expands its reach to the internet
and mobile phones, so even one in nature will not be removed
from TV's influence.
One example is consumption, in the
Late Afternoon chapter (the book starts at 6 a.m. and ends
at the same time the following day, making it both a linear
and cyclical journey). McKibben sees a trend in the proliferation
of shopping channels and infomercials: you are encouraged
to buy because the act of buying will make you feel good.
The transcription of a conversation on QVC and an infomercial
will definitely sound familiar to people who have lingered
on these channels longer than they'd wished, though McKibben
frames the infomercial's ability to sell us something because
it's a deal (not because we need what they're selling) with
nature's complete lack of shopping. Sure, one can load themselves
with the latest gear to make a trek into nature, but once
there a tree isn't going to sell them anything, nor will
a frog or deer. An experience free from shopping will make
one question the notion of consumption and consider what
is needed.
Another example that comes near the
end of the book is how television, by constantly referring
to itself and limiting subjects to those post-1940s (minus
things like Ken Burns' Civil War documentary, which is ironically
composed of mainly still photos and letters read aloud),
is very self-conscious and in turn creates a context for
watching more TV. The most dangerous aspect of this self-consciousness
is when television acknowledges that watching TV is not
the best use of our time, while at the same time making
it okay by acknowledging it. An example McKibben illustrates
is an MTV ad that ends with the words, "they're [the
words on the screen] just sitting here....LIKE YOU."
It reinforces the notion that viewers are under no illusion
that they're not just sitting there; they know they're not
being forced to watch TV, but at that moment they want to,
to wind down after a hard day, for example.
So if television by its nature is
becoming smarter to ways of keeping us watching, is it making
us smarter? This reviewer would say no, though I would take
McKibben's message (TV can't replace the information of
the natural world) to mean we must balance our daily lives
and experiences so we're not out of tune with the world
around us. By isolating our experiences and learning to
what's piped through cable and mediated by others, we run
the risk of, for example, mistreating nature because we're
unable to hear her signals. We don't even need to spend
24 hours on a mountaintop near a pond to learn this other
information, we just need to get outside away from the TV
as much as we can.
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