The Subconscious Danger of Personification

When you have time to spare and aren’t feeling too motivated, do you sit down and watch television? Or do you watch the television? Sure, it’s a minor difference, but it’s arguably very significant; which is why I’m going to argue this significance.

Television is a noun. Not a proper noun, either, just one of those everyday commonplace nouns, like radio. Now, when you’re in your car and you want to listen to some music, you don’t listen to radio, you listen to the radio. Why? Because radio is a noun and requires that tiny preposition. Now, let’s pretend your radio is broken and you had your friend Sam sing for you. You would be listening to Sam, not to the Sam, because Sam is a proper noun. So why, then, do most people watch television when they should be watching the television? Because we’ve over-inflated its status in our lives.

Television is no longer just some household item that we turn on when we want entertainment and off when we’re finished. It sits in the center of the living room with every seat angled in relation to its presence, often still turned on simply for the background noise. It becomes like another member of the household and we watch Television the same way we would watch Sam. The programs on it are intended to make us emotionally involved so that we tune in to see advertising for products that we think we must need because we trust Television as much as we’d trust a member of our family. We’ve personified it as someone important in our lives.

Television is a dangerous beast and it’s easy to become fascinated by its luster. That’s the point. It was designed that way. It is an efficient device for controlling your time and manipulating your mind. It is soma, it is the opiate of the masses, it is the new religion. And if you let it, it will consume you.