TV Dinners

Back in my youth, a special treat was to be able to have dinner while watching television. I would hunker down in front of the television and mindlessly guide the food to my mouth while watching Mary Tyler Moore throw her hat in the air and spin around ( I so wanted to be her and to have my own cool apartment).

Now it's changed, instead of the television we eat at our desks while scanning the internet. We have numerous windows open, the news, youtube, iTunes, twitter, Facebook, ebay, etsy, amazon, hulu....so many bookmarks so little time. When I was a kid eating dinner in front of the television was a communal act, now it's a singular by yourself with a slice of pizza gripped in between your teeth while you type furiously into your twitter stream.

As we move forward, the act of eating has become virtual.

I eat, I tweet about it. I watch a youtube video, I will post it to my Facebook. And millions of other people will do the same, all in a technological singularity. The more we type, the more the machines learn about us.

I miss the feel of carpet below my flannel clad bottom as I balanced a plate of rice and chicken on my knee, I miss the few choices I had, I miss eating with my family in a room light only by a glowing television. I miss the time when I was not known by my keywords but by the face reflected in the flickering light of the cathode ray tubes.

Image: Ophelia Chong / Table for One