Keep the records spinning

Joe Biden's confusing and stumbling reference to keeping the "record player on" has been hashed out and ridiculed on Twitter quite thoroughly. I won't revisit the educational concept he was trying to touch on there (that preschoolers need to "hear more words" or even possibly classical music), or even detail the history of how record players have been used in educational settings over the years. (The movie Conrack used the record player in particularly memorable and cinematic ways, though the movie has been criticized for playing on the "white savior" myth.)

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For me, a more interesting aspect of Joe Biden's gaffe is that he was obviously trying to cover up his mention of TV as a possibly beneficial influence on children. His brain accessed and uttered a quickly conjured replacement (inself an fascinating linguistic phenomenon) that seemed vaguely more educational and verbal than TV.

Over the years, there have been mixed reports of the value of children's programming on TV. This recent report on a study seems to show significant benefits.) Children are "hearing words" on TV, of course, but they're also being exposed to distracting imagery, as well as possibly violence, sex, and loads of advertising (if they flip the channel from PBS).

I think if I had kids and let them watch much TV, I would do so with the captioning on. Then the kids are "reading" TV as well, and also being exposed to the craft of dialogue in a certain way. (This would help a future screenwriter.)

As a kid growing up in the 70s and 80s, I watched a lot of TV. As the Albert Brooks character says in Defending Your Life, "it was everything to me." Although I can think of a lot of negative things I learned from TV, I also remember getting interesting career ideas, like wanting to be a photographer when watching the Odd Couple or becoming interested in news reporting while watching Lou Grant. (In fact, I ended up learning and using both those skills in my early career working in the newspaper business.) This was before the "golden age" of TV, as represented by the high-minded cable shows, but whatever TV lacked in thoughtfulness, it also had a certain innocence and light-heartedness that seems largely missing today. Even the comedies have a cynical or satirical edge.

At its best, TV exposes us to ideas and worlds we do not know. We shouldn't be so quick to dismiss it (or record players, which have been making a real comeback in recent years. What's old is new again.)