Okuma – Multi-channel TV is bad

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In the past, when I was a child, we could not change the TV channel when we did not like the program. We could not even imagine doing it as there was only one TV channel in the whole country. Today we can watch more than a thousand different TV channels because of satellites and satellite receivers. This looks like an advantage when we think of the past. However, it is not as simple as that. As long as you do not have alternatives you do not think about them. Satellite receivers have provided too many alternatives and raised our expectations from TV, which cannot be fulfilled.

One’s imagination and expectations are limited with what they believe they can have. 500 years ago people could not drive motor-cars but they were not worried about it because they did not know about cars: cars were not invented yet. People had no such expectations. Not long ago I watched only one TV channel. I was not worried about it. This was simply because I did not know there could be more than one channel. Therefore my expectations were limited with it; if there was something good to watch, I would be glad; and if there was not, I would turn off the TV and do something different such as reading, or talking with my family. I was happy with the one-channel TV, thinking about its benefits being thankful for them.

Things have changed a lot since then. First we had private TV channels. Then the government set up new channels. After that, something new appeared, which added thousands more to our channel list: satellite receivers! Up to this point everything looked fine and improving. However, everything seems to have been changing for the worse.

The invention of satellite receivers brought about great expectations. When we heard of thousands of new TV channels which we could watch whenever we liked, we felt excited. We thought that TV would become an incredibly more enjoyable device. When we got bored with one channel we could watch another one of thousands of channels; we would surely find something good to watch in one of them.

As we understand now, however, things are different from this. Out of the thousands of channels, I have chosen only 24 channels for my channel list. That is simply because most of the time I do not understand the language. Even the best films become impossible to watch when you do not understand the language. In short, satellite receivers have been a great disappointment. Even among the 24 channels in my list there are few ones with really good programs. Yet I cannot turn off the TV and go back to my work as I used to do in the past, either, because I always expect an enjoyable program to appear. It is often a waste of time.

I want my one-channel TV back. I want to forget about all the other channels. I want to forget about the fact that there can be more than one channel. I want to go back to the innocent one-channel days of my childhood.

Bu okuma parçası 2005-2006 eğitim öğretim yılında Pazarcık Anadolu Lisesinin hazırlık okumuş 10. sınıflarına yazılı sınavda sorulmuştur.