Call Me Nielsen

In yet another attempt to move against the tide, Darby and I decided to get rid of our cell phones. Our decision was partly due to economics and partly due to the fact that we just never got used to talking on a phone that isn’t tethered attractively to the wall.

When we tell people that we no longer have a mobile phone, they treat us as though we have just told them that we are dying. They assume, like with dying, that it wasn’t really our decision, and they offer their pity and support. Fighting back tears, they say, “You poor things. If you ever need anything at all, don’t hesitate to write.”

As far as I can tell, telephone technology hasn’t changed very much since the days when Alexander Graham Bell first tied two cans together. Still, rejecting the current technology is insulting to some—interpreted as a character judgment, like we think we’re too good for cell phones. I’ve noticed that our phone rings a lot less than it used to, though I wonder if people know that a cell phone will still call a landline.

It’s true that mobile phones possess more capabilities and have helped rid us of things like address books, calendars, and punctuality, but the basic function of a phone remains the same—I enter a sequence of numbers, you say “Yell-o?” I guess the thing that I will miss the most is not being able to know that at this exact moment you are parking and will be there in a minute.

The landline does have its upsides too. You don’t have to charge it, the reception is always excellent, and is not as fragile as a mobile phone. I don’t know how many times I found myself in the middle of a heated exchange, frantically searching for something I could throw because my wireless company said I was going to get charged if I kept “losing” mine. A corded phone, on the other hand, is like a gavel—hard and loud. Bounce that thing off the tabletop a few times and it’s pretty clear who’s in charge.

“You idiots!” SLAM. “I told you!” SLAM. “I wanted thin crust!”

Another benefit of the landline is that I still get calls from solicitors. I have thought about registering for the Do Not Call list, but I just never grow weary of telling people that I am the man of the household. And occasionally I get a phone call that changes everything.

After a short phone conversation with a polite young man regarding the number of “sets” we own, whether we have cable, and whether we speak Spanish, Darby and I were formally welcomed into the Nielsen Family, and thus my destiny was fulfilled.

I had always wondered about the other Nielsens and who they were. I pictured middle-class families of four sitting together in a carpeted living room and watching sit-coms—the same families that are depicted in these sit-coms, really. I guess that shows you what kind of imagination I have.

If I could get a full-time job watching TV, I would. I will watch anything. I have one of the greatest memories in history, and it is mostly full of obscure cereal commercials and Simpsons quotes. If there is a TV on, with no sound, across a noisy bar, I will not be able to converse with you. It is that compelling for me. My undergraduate thesis was comprised entirely of stills I made while watching television, and a paper that included sections with titles like “Learning to Love Mondrian: An After-School Special.” Put into economic terms, I spent about $60,000 so that I could receive a degree for taking pictures that had already been taken.

A lot of people think television is evil. You read articles about kids who are watching thirty hours of TV per week. The reporters are usually incensed, and they blame TV for everything from our declining educational standards to obesity. Well, I don’t think television is the sole reason our children are overweight (zero calories), and it certainly doesn’t make you stupid. This opinion is merely a holdover from pre-post-modernity where culture was viewed on a vertical axis, television being considered part of “pop” culture, and ranking well below enriching and educational experiences like looking at abstract paintings by drunks, or seeing The Nutcracker. As much as I love to watch men in leotards quietly jumping around in front of trompe l’oeil palaces, I am not clear on its benefit to my understanding of the world. Suffice it to say, there are different types of smarts. I honestly think I learned more about geography, history, and mythology by watching Duck Tales than by attending grades 4–12*.

The package arrived on a Wednesday, a cardboard envelope with the Nielsen logo—the name in a blue, serif font, next to a television set knocked akimbo, and displaying the word TV—prominently displayed on all sides. The contents were thus:

1. A thank you letter from my relatives, the other Nielsens
2. My logbook
3. Thirty dollars cash

I had to laugh at the low-tech system that was still being used. In the age of digital
broadcasts, I should think that there would be a way to track viewership automatically, in-house. Instead, they rely on us to fill in a little booklet, by hand, with the exact times and programs that we viewed. And who, besides your grandparents, sends cash? If you ever come across an unopened Nielsen envelope, it will contain a ten and a twenty. I'm just sayin….

I wondered how they ever got anybody to follow through, since they pay you up front, but ultimately I decided that the cash was a masterstroke. Cash in your hand reinforces the agreement, and makes it seem more like a real family. If you received a check, you could easily ignore your duties and neglect to cash it to make up for your sloth, or change it later, once the shame had subsided. With cash, the responsibility is palpable—you barely know these people and they're sending you money in the mail.

Of course, we also got a follow-up call (an Uncle, I think) to make sure we received our package, and to guilt trip us into actually filling out the logbook and returning it on time. I suppose they thought that we were just going to buy drugs with the money and get so stoned that we’d forget to fill it out. The thought barely crossed my mind.

The filling out of the logbook was more complicated than I imagined. For one thing, they want you to know the name of each station your set receives—in my case all thirteen of them. For example, it is not enough to write, “Channel 2. Fox.” They want to know that you are watching KRQE. This is fine for CBS and NBC and the other stations that I watch with some regularity, but there was no way that I was going to bother learning the call sign of the station that only shows Korean musical soap operas, or La Explosión, the Spanish language channel that shows dubbed action movies, (Hasta la vista, bebé). I just scribbled something illegibly in those fields.

Once I was all logged in I was ready to roll. Strangely, I felt a heightened sense of self-consciousness. Normally I would only feel mildly ashamed to watch a half-hour commercial for the 10 CD set Soft Rock of the 70s, hosted by the aged members of Air Supply. But I will still watch the whole thing, even after the stock footage of the rare performances repeats, because I would be watching it ironically. However, as part of my new family, I would have to admit to someone, a scientist probably, that I had done so. I began to get suspicious about just how much data could be gleaned from a logbook, and whether it would go in my file.

“Mr. Photos, is it true that you once watched a re-run of the Jeopardy College Tournament with a friend, and pretended you had psychic powers?”

“Yes.”

“Unfortunately, I’m afraid that disqualifies you from being an Astronaut. I am very sorry.”

“But still, I knew you were going to say that. So explain that.”

Now that I had to write down every minute of television I was watching, I began to feel something resembling embarrassment. In order to seem more high-brow, I found myself lingering on a PBS documentary about steam when I knew that I was missing Two and a Half Men.

Darby felt it too. As Kath & Kim came on, she told me to mark an X for her (meaning she had stopped watching). Since she remained on the couch, I refused, as this was expressly forbidden in the logbook rules.

“But I don’t want people to know that we watch this show.”

“Like who?”

“Anybody.”

“Then we should turn the TV off.”

“So, turn it off.”

“Never!”

The real shame about the Nielsen system is that it doesn’t allow for the viewer to provide their opinion. There is not even a comments section in the logbook. The only data that is gathered is whether or not you watched a program, viewership being the ultimate form of praise. The problem with this method is that, by its standards, McDonald’s would have to be considered the best restaurant in the world. I suppose individual critiques of every program would just take too long to read.

In an attempt to assert myself, I adopted a code of symbols to indicate my feelings about a particular program. 30 Rock and the four football games I watched were marked with hearts; Law and Order: Criminal Intent got a smiley face; Steam received a word bubble containing, “zzz…”

Our totals for the week were pretty low, and I began to realize how different my life is from my college days when we watched movies, The Price Is Right, all the late night talk shows. Once the centerpiece of our living room, the television actually plays a pretty small part in my life when compared with the laptop computer.

But, as with our landline, or the radio broadcasts of baseball games, or the fact that we don’t own a car, perhaps our rabbit-eared television will once again become the choice for entertainment as it slides ever further from its place of prominence in the American home, just where we like it.


* Take that Mrs. Howard. Blabbering Blatherscythe!