With and Without TV and Marital Happiness.

We don't have a TV in our home.  We did, but given work schedules and our viewing preferences, we canceled it and saved the money.  Netflix gives me all I need.  So I'm generally immune from the advertising that rules the airwaves.  Until I travel.

So recently when I was at a conference I tuned it, caught up on World Cup play, which is thankfully commercial free, and then tuned in to a "world premiere" of a show I had seen advertised - at a movie no less.  It had all the compelling aspects of shows I like.  Action, military, science etc.  The cost of watching it was re-entry into the world of commercial expectations.  Boy do we have expectations.

In one car commercial, sequences of horribly damaged cars were accompanied by the statement "They lived."  Wow.  So now, regardless of how horribly I crash, I should have the expectation of living through it.  And another commercial, also for a car, I learned that no matter how distracted I am, my car can and should correct for my mistakes.  Veer too much from my lane, it informs me.  Approach a vehicle in front of me too fast, it brakes for me.

Now I'm not opposed to smart(er) cars, just like I'm not opposed to smart(er) phones or computers.  I am concerned that expectations of our own responsibility is being shaped to decrease our sense of self and relationship with the world.

Interestingly, I read an article recently about divorces in later life, after 20+ years of marriage.  One of the professionals interviewed opined that the increase in divorce of this population is due to the increased frequency of people's expectations being raised about how much they deserve, how much they "should" get from life.  This seems to be a (natural?) expansion of the selling of sex that has accompanied advertising for at 150 years.  Google "Pearl Tobacco" if you need proof.  I don't think even then that anyone would have actually thought that smoking a Pearl would cause naked women to approach.  But the claims seem to have gone so much further now.  Horrible auto crashes should be, not could be survived.  Irresponsible driving should be intercepted by our machines.  We don't need to be responsible any more.

I hope I'm not the only one who has a problem with that line of thinking.