Did you come out of the analog TV closet for the digital TV transition, or are you just turning it off and reading a book instead?

Eeeek! Shades of Y2K all over again. For months we have been warned that our beloved and faithful companion, that provider of the most dubious of ethical entertainment, our television, was about to shed its analog roots and come out of the closet in full digital glory. What that meant, we were told, was that there would be no more analog signals to be snatched from the air using the coat hanger nailed to a broom handle as an antenna. We needed a digital convertor box or...dare I say it... a digital television. Of course, for those still in trailer parks and using the broom antenna method, there was still hope; a simple convertor box would convert those antique analogs into the new and sleek digital signal. Of course if you are a cable subscriber, it does not matter what you have; your signals will be just fine. Poor in content but just fine. Which reminds me of the Y2K warnings that airplanes would fall from the sky and the world would end and how we waited with baited breath as New Zealand passed into the new year first, hours ahead of us, watching to see if any Air New Zealands would be plummeting to the ground. Y2K was a dud. There is something to be said for the digital outting; it serves to remind us how few people are actually reading books anymore. There are no television free nights where families gather and read a book, either shared or independently, reveling in the silence to absorb those words well enough to have our brain transform them into mental images - you know, imagination, a movie without the ten dollar popcorn and soda you have to buy at the theater, or those annoying commercials that bombard us from the box. "A 2005 survey of parents of children six and under found that the average child spends 1 hour 36 minutes daily consuming "screen media" (television, videos, video games, or computers), and only 40 minutes daily with a book (reading or being read to). 43 percent of children under age two watch television every day. 54 percent of two- to three-year-olds know how to change channels with the remote. 43 percent of four- to six-year-olds have a television in the bedroom; when their parents are asked about it, 30 percent say it's to help the children fall asleep. The proportion of twelfth graders who read for fun on their own at least once a month has declined as follows: 77 percent in 1992, 72 percent in 1994, 71 percent in 1998, 66 percent in 2002, and 70 percent in 2005."  Click HERE to read the article Perhaps the digital warning should be that we are fast becoming conditioned by the tube and not by any intellect on our part. We accept our friends to be those hi-def two dimensional characters from our favorite shows, especially those insane reality shows that make Charles Manson's family look like the Cleavers. So today, the digital day of life and the death of analog, turn off the boob tube and pick up a book. Flip the pages enjoying the crisp lack of technology and immerse yourself in a world of your own making. Now that sounds like a plan! MisterWriter