"I think one of the reasons that I feel empty after watching a lot of TV, and one of the things that makes TV seductive, is that it gives the illusion of relationships with people."

"It’s a way to have people in the room talking and being entertaining, but it doesn’t require anything of me. I mean, I can see them, they can’t see me. And, and, they’re there for me, and I can, I can receive from the TV, I can receive entertainment and stimulation. Without having to give anything back but the most tangential kind of attention. And that is very seductive. The problem is it’s also very empty. Because one of the differences about having a real person there is that number one, I’ve gotta do some work. Like, he pays attention to me, I gotta pay attention to him. You know: I watch him, he watches me. The stress level goes up. But there’s also, there’s something nourishing about it, because I think like as creatures, we’ve all got to figure out how to be together in the same room. And so TV is like candy in that it’s more pleasurable and easier than the real food. But it also doesn’t have any of the nourishment of real food. And the thing, what the book is supposed to be about is, What has happened to us, that I’m now willing—and I do this too—that I’m willing to derive enormous amounts of my sense of community and awareness of other people, from television? But I’m not willing to undergo the stress and awkwardness and potential shit of dealing with real people."

David Foster Wallace, quoted in "Although Of Course You End Up Becoming Yourself: A Road Trip with David Foster Wallace," by David Lipsky.

I'm reading this book after watching the movie based on this book, "The End of the Tour" (which is free on Amazon Prime). The movie is good for those who (like me) enjoy watching 2 people have a long conversation.

ADDED: "I mean, I can see them, they can’t see me." But just the other day, on one of his Periscopes, Scott Adams deadpanned the joke that the app had been upgraded to enable him to see his viewers. And remember how "Romper Room" regularly assured children that it was able to see them through the TV:



And of course the TVs in "1984" were spying on everyone everywhere, and who doesn't worry that our computer/phone screens are 2-way?

DFW was expressing sadness about the 1-way quality of television. But that was in the context of also feeling sad about using TV as a substitute for in-person human interaction. He confessed to an "addiction" to television and — in the book — says "I’ll watch five or six, I’ll zone out in front of the TV for five or six hours."