Socrates wasn't given a medal and a tickertape parade after all. Pursuing this experience puts us smack in the middle of the infamous Protestant Ethic in a very direct and personal way. After some discussion it invariably turns out that all the students admit to having wasted a lot more than a half hour in front of the TV set. When you turn the TV on, in effect, you turn the world off. The TV is only two feet high or so, yet we are fooled into thinking we are watching life-sized things.
Technical events produce the illusion of being natural and realistic.
In the same way, we are unaware that the practice of watching TV is a practice because we have never experienced it as a phenomenon in its own right. We see what the texture of the experience of watching TV consists of. We are shocked into seeing what it is we've been doing all these years. When you focus on the technical events you can't focus on the plot or storyline. You learn very quickly how difficult it is to divide your attention.