Due to recent health issues and a stay in the hospital, I have not been up to posting new blog entries. But now I am feeling better. So here goes.

I’m convinced that television divides people from each other. I can recall several instances when Mother and I were watching a show on TV. I would begin to talk, only to have my mother hush me up.

“I’m trying to listen to this,” she would say.

Carrying on a conversation was all but impossible. We might as well have been sitting in different rooms.

And with the advent of the VCR, conversation became even more problematic. Now you can record a show and fast-forward through the commercials, leaving no interval for talk.

It was not always so.

When we lived in Jersey City during the early days of television there were only three networks, and for a considerable portion of the day you would turn on the TV only to discover test patterns covering the screen. There were kids’ shows during the morning and afternoon. But the only evening shows I can recall as must-sees were I Love Lucy and The Honeymooners. So there was little need to go rushing home to watch something.

My parents owned a Capehart TV. The set was housed in a large wooden cabinet, with a door hanging on either side that could be closed over the screen to protect it from a young child’s overexcited play.

I remember my mother reading to me on those long evenings when we kept the doors on the TV set closed. I suppose that parents still read to their children when they can tear themselves away from the screen. Some evenings we would leave the apartment and make our way to a nearby park where we would sit on a bench and watch the traffic on busy Hudson Boulevard. At least once a week we would get into our maroon DeSoto and drive around the city, observing the lights in the office buildings and store windows come on.

When we moved from our apartment in Jersey City in 1955 to our newly completed house on Huyler Road, there were still only three TV networks, plus the new PBS station. We would spend many evenings sitting at the kitchen table playing cards, Scrabble, or Monopoly.

But little by little, our game time at the kitchen table began to be eroded by the increasing number of quality TV shows that we did not want to miss: The Real McCoys, Gunsmoke, Bonanza, and The Twilight Zone––which we watched on our old black-and-white Capehart TV.

Here in the twenty-first century, with a virtually unlimited number of stations to watch, people interact with each other far less than they did in days gone by. The TV screen––and most homes now have at least two or three sets––insures that there will be a lack of communication. Many husbands spend the entire weekend binging on one sporting event after another. (Think “football widow.”)

I look back fondly at the hours I spent at the kitchen table with my parents, when we were able to entertain ourselves without having to gather before the TV set.

I can’t help but wonder if TV viewing and its effect on interpersonal communication is a factor in today’s high divorce rate.

What do you think?