Harvard Needs More Plugging In

It didn’t take long for me to realize there was something unusual—compulsive, even—about my TV viewing habits over spring break.

The thought occurred to me, fittingly, during a commercial. With all the seriousness of President Bush trying to name the capital of Afghanistan, it dawned on me that, in the next few minutes, I would have to make a painful decision. Watch through the end of Law & Order, or switch channels and see Amanda Peet on The Tonight Show?

Under normal circumstances, such a decision would not have seemed so pressure-packed, borderline life-altering. But in the context of my quiet week at home—with just one job interview to preoccupy my thoughts and time—choosing whether to see another TV criminal get convicted or the engaging Peet fend off Jay Leno’s leering advances suddenly became a daunting task.

More was at stake than was visible to my parents, who by the end of the week were wondering whether there’s a TV watchers’ equivalent of the Betty Ford Clinic. Even I was a little concerned by how seriously (mock-seriously, I told myself) I was taking my TV viewing. But then the real issue became clear: not having my own TV at school, I was simply trying to make the most out of my limited time with access to cable and not much else to do. Based on what I’ve heard from other Harvard students who went home for spring break, I was hardly alone last week in my mostly pleasurable, occasionally stressful TV binge.

Two types of students inhabit this campus: those who regularly watch TV, and those who—you guessed it—don’t. I am, regrettably, a member of the latter category, staking out house common rooms or making arrangements in advance when there’s something in particular I want to watch in a friend’s room. I’m joined in my TV-lessness by a large sector of the Harvard population, a group which knows not what it’s missing.

At a university that prides itself on the living standards of its students, it is remarkable that so many of us are deprived of TV, a truly elemental part of the American lifestyle. The situation is not the university’s fault—no one has the “right” to a TV—and in fact it is students who are depriving themselves of the simple pleasures of the sitcom and the important if incomplete information disseminated nightly through the TV news filter. This is not only a problem because it creates crises like the one I experienced over spring break, but more importantly because it makes the Harvard bubble even more impenetrable and robs students of an invaluable setting in which to have some casual fun and take a bit of time to relax.

Harvard students, as one is reminded from time to time, are supposed to be eternally studious and hard-working. Most people got here by working like dogs, and stopping after getting admitted hardly seems like a good idea given the new environment. Harvard culture is about always being busy, or at least appearing to be busy, in order to demonstrate the ambition, focus and other qualities that we are all supposed to personify and hold so dear.

There’s always meant to be another exam or extracurricular activity to demand our attention, and admitting that we regularly watch Survivor or The Sharon Osbourne Show shatters that illusion. It’s allegedly a disservice to ourselves for not working harder, as well an affront to all those other students who might—call a doctor—start to wonder whether they’re structuring their lives correctly.

Second, the widespread campus aversion to TV seems illogical and shortsighted at a school where so many students fancy themselves future leaders in their field. By and large, those fields will not be anywhere near Cambridge, so it’s not a bad idea to keep up with what’s taking place outside our gated confines. The culture and society that so many of us study exists outside course readings and the Internet, yet too many students willfully shut themselves off from what their future employers, spouses and peers observe on television and think about. TV remains the dominant shaper and purveyor of our culture, and it’s not a good idea to have a black hole where a sense of that culture should be.

And, as I pleasantly re-learned over spring break, TV isn’t the intellect-dissolver or morality-debaser that it is so often criticized as being. There happens to be a lot of clever and interesting stuff out there (Amanda Peet on Leno, for example), and even the bad programs are usually worth figuring out and dismissing.

Good or bad, however, TV can always be counted on to provide an a worldview outside Harvard or a little escapist fun, each of which, even my parents would agree, is worth at least a bit of our time.

—Staff writer Nathan K. Burstein can be reached at burstein@fas.harvard.edu.