Always a welcoming feeling, I plopped down on the living room couch at my grandparent’s house while I was in Ohio for Thanksgiving this past November. A happy little fire warmed the room and expanded the smile on my face. There are few things I love more on a cold day than spending an afternoon with family in a cozy room with a wood burning fireplace. Plus I have so many happy memories from time spent at my grandparent’s house over the past thirty-one years. Sweet, sweet memories.

As I sat down on the couch my grandma grabbed the remote to the TV and turned the TV off. How different that seemed from the norm today. I made a mental note. There was a reason the simple action stuck out to me and I realized the reason why. TV has become such a centric part of entertaining guests for people of my generation, but for those in my grandparent’s generation it is quite the opposite. To Grandma and Grandpa the two do not go hand-in-hand. You cannot visit with someone and give them your full attention and also have the TV on. That’s because the TV will steal your attention. It doesn’t dance in the background, it steals the spotlight. It sucks you in like quicksand and before you know it, you’re so caught up in the TV show that your entire conversation shifts and is based on what is happening on TV. The TV somehow infuses itself into the gathering and forces itself to be the center of attention.

But that can’t happen when it’s turned off. 

When the TV is off, you are given the freedom to go anywhere you want to go conversationally. Personal attention and time is dedicated to one another. Instantly, the conversation is forced to become more personal. What I find interesting is how scary this is for so many people. I recall a time when my roommate and I had a few friends over about a year ago. Unlike your common young professionals, we don’t own a TV. In fact, I haven’t had a TV for about a year and a half. This makes visitors uncomfortable. In this particular instance, I specifically remember sitting down in the living room to chat and there was a lot of conversation happening about us not having a TV. Then a lot of questions as to what we do at home without a TV. Then a little bit of awkward silence from our guests, as it was clear they weren’t quite sure what to do now that the TV certainly wasn’t going to be a means of starting and carrying on conversation.

This moment of awkwardness made me smile. Stretching the boundaries of personal communication and care for one another. We’ve been so trained to sit down on the couch, turn on the TV, and let it take over, that we’ve sincerely lost our ability to effectively communicate about our present-life with one another.

Next time you go to a friend’s house, visit without the TV on. If it wouldn’t be appropriate to turn it off, imagine for a second how different conversation would be if it weren’t primarily based on whatever was coming from the TV. I think you’ll be surprised to realize how much conversation in our day to day lives revolves around the hottest TV show, the lives of the TV characters, sports figures, etc, that are living in our television sets.

A simple action of pressing OFF on the remote revealed to me the difference between two generations. Perhaps it’s time we learn to communicate with one another again. Perhaps it’s time we learn to be present in the lives of one another rather than using TV characters to relate.