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Author Topic:   Should the Public Airwaves be More or Less Censored?
Percy
Member
Posts: 22392
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.3


Message 12 of 310 (392783)
04-02-2007 10:30 AM
Reply to: Message 6 by riVeRraT
04-02-2007 9:08 AM


riVeRraT writes:
Then don't watch the commercials, seriously who doen't change the channel when commercials are on? Or mute it.
Dr.Jones, I consider you a smart guy, can't you figure out for yourself why this not a practicle thing to do?
I've had TiVo since September, 1999. There's a 30-second skip feature. I don't watch most commercials. Even the best commercials, after you've seen them a couple or three times, that's plenty.
The two satellite companies (DirecTv and Dish) both offer TiVo-like capability in their DVRs, as do almost all cable companies. DVR's for HDTV are now available, and in fact I bought one just last month. Whichever box you get you can always skip commercials, wither with 30-second skip or fast forward, unless you're watching live TV, something I almost never do. If I catch up to live while watching a program, I pause it and go off and do chores or check my email or something for 15 minutes.
Skipping commercials isn't the answer to your concerns, but I just wanted to point out that there are very easy and very inexpensive ways of not watching commercials that are available.
But that's my whole point, I am not a free as you say. Why are my kids seeing r rated commercials during a g rated basketball game?
Now if true, this is a horse of a different color, but I watch *a lot* of basketball, and I think I know what's out there in the form of commercials during basketball games. I can't think of a commercial that even approaches PG-13, let alone R, so can you give an example of what you're thinking of?
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 6 by riVeRraT, posted 04-02-2007 9:08 AM riVeRraT has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 31 by riVeRraT, posted 04-03-2007 11:22 PM Percy has not replied

Percy
Member
Posts: 22392
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.3


Message 13 of 310 (392790)
04-02-2007 10:59 AM
Reply to: Message 2 by riVeRraT
04-02-2007 12:01 AM


I tried to protect my children from exposure to inappropriate material. Tried for years. And failed.
I first tried to protect them from the Internet. They're 17 and 19 now, but around 10 years ago and we were using AOL, I used the child settings to control their Internet access. Even the lowest setting was so constraining as to be useless. I can't count the number of times I would go out on the Internet on my own computer and find websites I thought they'd be interested in, only to find that AOL wouldn't permit them access. They weren't happy and I wasn't happy. We quickly abandoned AOL's solution to the problem.
So I researched the area and tried a couple other approaches. These didn't work either. In order to be absolutely certain of allowing no PG-13 or worse content through when the level is set to PG, the only sites allowed through are things like http://www.pbskids.com. CNN, NY Times, etc, were all off-limits, which kind of puts a crimp on your 10-year old's current events research for class.
I quickly abandoned these tools and went with VNC. This is a very simple program that allows you to interactively view the screen of other computers on your home network. With this I could periodically check what my kids were up to. This was not a good thing, either, because it created an environment of distrust.
So I don't know what the answer is for the Internet.
Concerning TV, it's not just the commercials you have to worry about - have you ever watched MTV?
Or how about radio? I forget what age the kids were when they began changing the car radio station to stations they liked, and I was shocked at what I heard. I had no idea that such explicitness was permitted. The snippet of sound that was cut out for certain words was so short as to leave absolutely nothing to the imagination about what the words were. I assume it's the same way today - my kids have their own cars now and so my car radio stays tuned to my stations.
Then there's CDs, which usually have no censoring at all. You can monitor which CD's your children buy, but some kids will have the "good" CD's that fascinate your kids, and they'll loan them and make copies of them. Trying to protect kids from bad language and sexually explicit expression is dumb anyway once they're past 12 or 13, just listen to kids talk among themselves sometime.
What I'm getting at is that in most of America and Canada today, it really isn't practical to protect your kids from exposure to inappropriate material. The only way to do it is either to be with them every second while they're watching TV or using the Internet or listening to CDs, or to not allow them to watch TV, use the Internet or listen to CDs. Those are your choices, and they're both ridiculous.
So the question, "How do I protect my kids from exposure to inappropriate materials?" is actually the wrong question. The right question is, "Given that it is inevitable that my kids will be exposed to inappropriate material, what am I going to tell them to help them make sense of it and place it in a context appropriate for their age?"
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 2 by riVeRraT, posted 04-02-2007 12:01 AM riVeRraT has not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 15 by macaroniandcheese, posted 04-02-2007 11:20 AM Percy has not replied
 Message 26 by fallacycop, posted 04-02-2007 4:54 PM Percy has not replied

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