If I had the ability to change one thing about American society, my decision would not be adifficult one. I would ban television. 

I grew up a couch potato. Looking back, it seems I hardly read anything else at all—Iwatched TV almost seven hours a day. 

There are so many good reasons for you to be a couch potato. Television is goodbefore-breakfast entertainment. Television is good after-school entertainment. Television is goodbefore-bed entertainment. Everybody watches it, so you have to watch it too in order to talk aboutit with friends. Otherwise you cannot say a word, which makes you look like an idiot. 

But when I stopped watching television completely several months ago, I found that I hadbecome a more reflective person, simply because I had more time to think. Television had stoppedstuffing its ideas into my head. I was thinking of my childhood, and to my disappointment, I foundthat it could be summed up adequately in one sentence: “I watched a lot of TV. ” And I wastmuch of my youth that I cannot have back. I will never be more imaginative than I was in mychildhood. 

Now I can totally resist the temptation of TV no matter how marvelous the programs are, andI’m entering into a new stage of life. In the meantime, I ’d hope that all couch potatoes would turnoff their TV. But I am afraid that with more and more attractive TV programs , I ’m not going to bethe last person in this country to idle awaythe best years of life sitting passively in front of atelevision.