Hook Me Up

I’d be very interested in the results of the Government 30: “Introduction to American Government” survey distributed earlier this semester by Assistant Professor of Government Andrea L. Campbell. Among other things, the poll asks for students’ primary source of news and information. For those of us in Harvard housing, I have a funny feeling that it isn’t television.

Of course, this is despite the fact that just about everyone I know has at least one television in his or her suite. But without cable access, the programming is limited.

Now, I won’t pretend that all Harvard students desire from the box is news and information. The TV’s primary role is as a source of diversion; but is there really anything wrong with that? Intramural sports are not academic, and they’re not in any danger of being eliminated. The Grille is a popular source of diversion and it’s not about to be shut down—oops, bad example.

Regardless, students should have access to cable television programming and if nothing else, the option for its installment.

In its purest form, television is a form of communication—a connection between people, as informative as any telephone conversation one will have. It keeps us in touch with what every other college student is watching and what every other college student knows.

The denial of this contact divorces Harvard students from the experiences and events that every other citizen has witnessed or heard about, and leaves on a book-smart island.

With the amount of money my Crimson Caller friends rake in each night, I know it isn’t the costs that are impeding installation.

And with the wiring the university has done in the past decade, it can’t be that difficult to slip some fiber-optic wires in with the other cables already there.

And let’s just allow this article to confirm the gross amount of demand for cable access.

So why do university officials drag their feet when it comes to any discussion of cable TV?

I think that it’s the fact that cable TV would not encourage study or anything else the administrators want—but at the same time, the university sponsors so many other non-academic activities, why not cable TV too?

I have a problem with the University controlling my life. I want to hold the remote.

If I want to catch SportsCenter before I go to bed, or get some comic relief from South Park as a half-hour study break, that should be my business.

My study habits are not the University’s concern. Perhaps I should be called when I miss a lecture from now on as well.

Most Harvard students are pretty capable of knowing when to sit down and write a paper. The University doesn’t need to block Instant Messenger for them to do that.

More practically, cable TV represents the flow of information and an eye into what’s occurring outside Harvard beyond The Crimson’s “Real World” section.

Whether it be CNN or TRL, cable TV should not be denied to students.

—jUSTIN D. GEST