I don't know where this came from...

Isn’t it interesting that books allow us to become people we admire, people who almost always turn out heroic, while television allows us to gape freely at those whom we would look at with disdain if we walked by them on the streets? That we would consider “trash,” were it not for the magical box that granted them an elite status for a fleeting moment?
I believe that television today is somewhat of a circus performance, a freak show. I don’t mean to sound like an outdated, stodgy person; that’s the opposite of who I am. It’s just that today’s “stars,” the individuals who we choose to represent outselves, epitomize humanity only at its basest level. The reality portrayed onscreen is shocking and fantastical, but nothing like our own (I hope).
The literary arts delight our intellect, the author’s oratory cunning spinning a web which leaves us spellbound and reeling, hardly able to believe that the experience we’ve just had stemmed from nothing more but letters printed on a page. I will unapologetically declare that I am the biggest fan there is of book full of good ideas. Articulation is beautiful. Television, on the other hand, is a dancing visual spectacle, suspending the mind rather than engaging it.
I once read that television is practice for sleeping. How horrible is it that the Yetzer Horah makes us want to indulge with guiltless pleasure in something so useless! How many families have rotted together, glued to the tube, under the misconception that they are engaging in quality family time? Do they know that their physiognomy – brain waves, metabolism, etc – are slower when watching TV then when they are laying alone in the dark?
If you’re wondering to yourself: Jessica, why the sudden surge of hatred for television? The answer is that I don’t really know why its occurring now. I’ve never aspired to model myself after a character on television, or thought I was being productive while watching it. Perhaps, however, I perceive more clearly now that recognizing the negative qualities of watching TV did not immunize me to its effects, and I now understand why orthodox Jews don’t have TVs in their homes. Not only do I want my children to spend their spare time learning and bonding with family rather than sitting in parallel with their mouths wide open, my spiritually aware self is furious at the injustice that years of passive TV-watching has caused real damage to my perceptions of things and my spiritual level. Materialism is a huge battle with me, and I know that years of self-induced media exposure is at the root of it. More obviously, the values of celeb-reality are not the values of Torah. And since that’s what I want to surround myself with, why even bother with the confusion?