Do you need cable?

Here’s a question for all fellow college goers: do you need cable?

My short answer is no. It is a bit of limb to go out on, kind of a shocker, but I want to convince you: it is not a necessity, so not a need and only one want among many. Not because you don’t need it necessarily but have it as such a want as to seem like a need.

Now, you can have access to YouTube and other sources of media for cheap or even free. So why not go for the free stuff or the cheap entertainment?

If you think that you need cable, then you’re probably living in the 1990s, which is around the time that you were probably conceived, e.g. Street Fighter was big and the boy band members were the hot new items (Growl).

I would pitch an idea that you don’t need cable but you do need entertainment. Life would be relatively boring otherwise. 

That entertainment can come in multiple forms. It can come from the concert; it can come from bowling; it can come from board games with friends. It can come from moderate and responsible drinking. It can come from various sports hobbies such as skiing, snowboarding, kayaking, running, tennis, and so on. 

There are lots of things to do. The queue can seem endless. The boredom of twiddling thumbs in life, while waiting for the next exam, is not a possibility but an inevitability to be gotten through.

That’s why entertainment is a need and many forms of it high-level wants.

Cable is meant to provide some form of entertainment.

But it is a passive and low-level form of entertainment, especially for a time in life when you actually have the ability to partake of higher levels of physical activity. So why not take advantage of that greater range of possibilities? Don’t be a couch potato, unless you want to look like one.

Besides, these physical activities are all free for the most part, except for equipment cost. Just a bit of time, some friends, and a friendly competitive spirit to take the edge off the day to be put into a fun competition.

Get out, breathe the air, play some hockey or go for a walk and talk while drinking coffees and window shopping with your girlfriends. And turn the darn television off for a bit. 

If not for you, then for me on behalf of you.

About the author:

​​​Scott Douglas Jacobsen founded In-Sight Publishing and In-Sight: Independent Interview-Based Journal. ​He works for science and human rights, especially women’s and children’s rights. He considers the modern scientific and technological world the foundation for the provision of the basics of human life throughout the world and advancement of human rights as the universal movement among peoples everywhere.