But down in the low numbers, on the increasingly ineffectual networks, Houston and San Diego are tied in the fifth. I like television a lot better than the Internet. The Internet, the Web, all of computerland, is still a tiny paradigm, still dominated by a small portion of people of a certain education and class, still mostly male, still a king's ransom available only to the very few. The Internet responds to my opinions, searches for what I want to see, gives me only what I'm willing to wait for, pay for, know. The Internet shrinks my world.
Television expands it.
Television is truly the common denominator, the commonest. It is the world's middle. Watching television is the third most time-consuming activity in the world, behind only working and sleeping. Television is and must be and cannot be anything but average and at the same time it can't be anything but endless variety and change. I can't be a citizen of a world and not pay attention.