Why? Several reasons:

• I wasn’t learning much from television. The news seemed to be mostly sensationalist accounts and fear based marketing efforts. I couldn’t find the helpfulness in news spots like ‘Killer on the Loose’ when the likelihood of me crossing paths with this particular killer was less that dying in a car accident. As for situational comedies and dramas, it seemed like the vast majority of programming was repeating the same basic worn out plots. I didn’t see a need to watch a reality show when I could just step out my door.
• Research shows that the average state of mind when watching television is depression. Watching TV is a way to zone out and depress out minds. Some find the act of depressing to be relaxing (e.g., drinking alcohol). This is my only life and I don’t want to spend significant portions of my day zoning out – I want to zone in.
• There are better forms of recreation and many other delivery channels for news. I now read at night to relax. In fact, I’ve read about 40 books over the last six months, which is more than I have read over the six prior years. News is readily available online, and I can pick and choose what I read rather than having to sit through that ‘Killer on the Loose’ spot to learn about what is happening with immigration reform.

As for the topic of this blog post, today I found a signal in the television noise. The new gym I joined has nine big flat screen TV mounted at the front of the cardio area, which I find to be entirely distracting from my workout routine. My plan is to wear a baseball cap with the brim tilted down to block my view in the future. However, today I was sucked into a story and found something useful. It certainly wasn’t ground breaking, as I have already forgotten what it was that I learned. My point is that there are often signals in the noise of our daily lives, and our challenge is to turn down the noise enough so that we pick up these signals. Cutting out TV was one of my ways to turn down the noise in my life.

In her book My Stroke of Insight, Jill Taylor discusses the brain anatomy involved in writing. For right handed people, using a pen is predominantly a left brain activity. Whereas, typing on a keyboard requires a more balanced effort from both hemispheres. After Jill’s left brain stroke, she found herself initially unable to write with her right hand. She was, however, able to compose letters on her computer by heavily relying on her right brain.

Our current keyboard layout (called QWERTY) is based on typewriter mechanics. There are other English keyboard layouts available such as the DEVORAK, which is designed for typing speed. I wonder if we should go back to the drawing board and develop a keyboard to match our brains. Since most our language processing capabilities are in our left brain, maybe we should use a one handed keyboard (it would be a right handed keyboard since our left brain controls our right hand). Then again, maybe we produce better quality writing when using both hands to write.