Silent, Always-On TV in Westhill High Library

There is an article in today’s Advocate about how Westhill High has a new 50-inch plasma TV hanging above the checkout desk. It cost $1,810 and plays CNN all day with no sound. Now, where else have you seen that? That’s right. In the waiting area at the airport.

Obviously, it’s useless to have that in the media center, unless, for some reason, that’s where kids kill time at Westhill. Even if kids are killing time, they don’t want to do it looking at a silent news show. They want to doodle in their notebooks or work on their laptops.

Some lines from the article prove that the TV is there just to soothe lonely people:

It can be used to show PowerPoint presentations and to advertise school events, [technology management services director Michael Pensiero} said.
A TV is a good idea for ads- duh- but stick it in the school’s main hall if it’s going to be used for that. And who’s going to pull up chairs to the checkout video to watch a power point? I’m sure there’s a place in the computer lab for that. In fact, the librarian confirms that later in the article.

"I wasn't sure how I felt about it at first, and now if I forget to turn it on, and I look over, I feel closed off from the world," [Westhill Head librarian Jan Benedict] said.
Well, if that’s not a clear case of TV keeping a lonely person company, what is? I have no problem giving that person some fake adult company-- I once read that the TV show Friends stimulates the same part of your brain that your real friends do—but a little 20-inch could have fit right on the counter where only she can see it. I don’t begrudge that librarian a TV.

During a mid-day visit to the school last week, dozens of students were typing on computers near the television, almost oblivious to it. TV with the sound off has no interest for teenagers; that’s an adult thing. Westhill needs to reconsider if it's acceptable to use their media center to condition kids to ignore silent, moving images. I'm sure the other high schools in Stamford don't have a plasma in their media center, and I'm sure that other schools could have probably used some new social studies textbooks.

It's the only set in the building hooked up to live television.
"It's our window to the world," Benedict said. "I think it's wonderful."
That concept is 30 years old. TVs aren’t our windows to the world; the internet is. For people over 50 or 55, TV still might provide that. If you are under 45, it’s the internet. 50-inch plasmas are for fun, and the kids at Westhill don’t need silent CNN haunting their every moment in the media center.

The TV- another duh!!!- should be put in the teacher’s lounge. Those are the lonely people stuck with kids all day who need an outside window to the world! (And I have no beef with that. They should have spent 800 bucks to get a 34-inch for the teachers.)