Hijacking Conversations

Photo of my television screen during football game.

    We quit watching after five minutes.
     My father and I had tuned into the college football championship game. We were assaulted by a mind numbing display of graphic and audio overkill. It ruined the viewing experience.
     What bothered me the most was incessant chatter by network commentators. There were six of them. They appeared in three boxes on the screen.
     For me, watching a sporting event on television is a social experience. My father and I enjoy sharing our reactions to the action. But it’s getting harder to chit chat during games. The talking heads on the screen never shut up.
    This might sound outlandish, but I suspect that sports networks don’t want us talking to each other. Advertising dollars are at stake. They want us paying attention to the television when ads come on. To achieve that goal, they expose us to unrelenting commentary and graphics.
     And if we do—God forbid!—yearn to talk amongst ourselves, the network has a contingency. They encourage us to send live tweets. That way, we’re contributing not to the discussion in our living room, but to the discussion on the screen. 
     Sports networks are hijacking our conversations.