We all pick up bad habits in college. It’s part of the process. After the freshman fifteen, eating cereal out of the box at all hours, keeping nocturnal hours, and a raging caffeine-addiction, we get to chose an extra vice: Greek life, costume parties, online gaming, binge drinking, and off-license abuse of ADHD medications…

In my case – watching television.

It might not sound like a big deal to you. But for me, its sort of life-style-changing.

I should start out by saying that, unlike nearly everyone else on the face of the planet, I grew up without watching television. (Hard as that is to believe. I’ve seen grass huts in no-name villages powered by hand-cranked generators embroiled in arms-races of ever-larger satellite dishes so the entire extended family can watch sitcoms and musicals after dinner, by candlelight.) I grew up in LA. I was born in the city and came of age in suburbia. I wasn’t raised under a rock – just by parents who worked in the Entertainment Industry.

My mom got a lot of flack (from all sides) for her pretentious “prejudice” – people scoffed that she was fighting a losing battle sheltering my brother and I from the evils of Disneyfied capitalism, vainly striving for a sophisticated “European” upbringing. (Really, I think a lot of them jumped on the defensive, assuming she was judging them – its hardly a secret that tv plays nanny for a lot of children.)

I didn’t mind my mother’s anti-television-evangelism. Sure, I blamed her, at first, when I couldn’t keep up with the constant tv-themed small-talk. (Have any idea how much time kids spend talking about tv shows? And the characters on them?) Then, to be honest – I embraced my utter ignorance of pop culture. Bragged about all the shows that I’d never actually seen (an entire episode of). The only downside is that I never learned how to filter out the background noise of the tv-in-the-background. I’d go over to friends houses and be mesmerized. How could they eat dinner with all flickering moving thing in the corner? Advertisements were fascinating. We’d be out at a restaurant and I’d be too distracted to eat. I developed a sixth-sense, a homing instinct for any television turned on within a ten mile radius.

I read instead. (I’m told that I began to teach myself to read when I was three.) By elementary school, I was a speed reader, and I did nothing but read. (It was a helpful constant switching elementary schools five times.) We had a television, once, when I was a kid. I remember it vaguely – we only used it to watch films. As a teenager, I moved into my stepfather’s house and he had a tv (an actual working one) – we got CNN and CSpan for a while. Now, my parents have a projector and a screen that pulls down from the ceiling. (Like I said, parents who work in the Entertainment Industry.)

I still don’t even have a tv. Nor do any of my friends. (Well – not a working, plugged-in, hooked-up television.)

Which makes my new television-addiction all the more strange.

It started out innocently enough. My family used to watch films together; movies were kosher, great way to relax on Thursday night and cheaper than hitting the pub – not to mention better for my liver. When I ran out of dvds to borrow off my housemates, they started pushing tv shows. Flat out peddling them. Since, as any American knows, anything produced by the BBC is cultural, I didn’t have to feel guilty. Even I’d already seen Monty Python and Fawlty Towers, those aren’t really tv shows. Then I worked my way to more recent ones. The Mighty Boosh. Black Books. Skins. It was cultural curiosity.

Then the loneliness kicked in and I swear that half of it had to do with needing to hear the American accent. But only the good, respectable, quality, well-written stuff. (I read reviews first.) The Wire. Treme.

I was hooked by that point, but I wouldn’t admit it. Figured – in for a penny, so I went for a full pound. Started looking up all those shows I’d heard about – the ones that made the cover of Newsweek as cultural phenomenons. Had to hold my nose for some (Desperate Housewives) and rolled my eyes through others (Grey’s Anatomy, House) and couldn’t help analysing others (True Blood). Some I watched for the sets – anything that panned neighbourhoods of LA I could recognize (Californication, The L-Word, The Shield).

Back when I still discriminated – back when I still had preferences (no procedurals, costume dramas when sick, sitcoms when hungover, as few cop shows as possible and only for the plot) – back when I still and, short of bed rest, watched them one-at-a-time on relatively rare winding-down occasion – it wasn’t so bad.

Guilty pleasure, yes. Wish I didn’t, yes. Did I blame myself? Not so much. Was it a niggling identity crisis? Not so long as I pretended to be doing it ironically.

Now… now it’s just sad. I watch shows that I hate. Shows scripts so un-self-aware that the preposterous caricatures that masquerade as characters don’t begin to approach satire. Shows filled with annoying characters whose voices irritate me. Shows that force my face into contortions of disbelief that end up aching.

I play shows in the background, while I tidy my room, make dinner, or read the news. (I’ve got something playing in another tab, right now. Barely even paying attention to it – just enough to follow the plot – and hear the voices.)

I’m embarrassed to admit it. It’ll disappoint my mother and my uncles – after my grandmother tells them to read this – will no doubt be amused. But, I feel the need to confess. And explain. Because I really think its become a problem. Not that I watch tv – but how – and perhaps why – and what its replaced.

I’ve stopped writing. There’s a lot going on – but I think that watching tv has replaced it. Instead of listening to the narrative voice in my head and committing it to paper (keyboard), I try to fill my mind with other people’s voices, other people’s stories – and I need them constantly.

Why? I’m not sure. There’s all the usual suspects – boredom, loneliness, rebellion, just because I can – and I’m sure they’re implicated, to varying degrees.

(This is the point, again, that you’re probably laughing, poised to tell me it’s really not a big deal. Like I said in the beginning – it’s not that I’m trying to condemn television, itself – just confused by my sudden apparent need for it.)

But this is the first step, right? Admitting you have a problem…