Turn Off That TV in Your Lunch Room

Having spent a bit of time working offshore as an OHS/WHS "ring in" on various vessels, including small and medium sized ships and various platforms and rigs it is my experience that TVs can be a toxic presence for people, like me, that do not know anyone on board particularly well.

This dawned on me recently when working on a drilling rig in New Zealand waters that was unique in my experience in that it did not have a TV in the dining room. In this electronic vacuum, lacking the gravitational pull of a TV, people were able and willing to direct their attention to their companions. Whilst this may not always be a good thing, in this particular case the experience was noticeably more congenial for an outsider like myself. I was able to strike up conversations with interesting people from all over the world with experiences - like having been on the Oceania Oil Rig before it exploded - that I normally hear about only on the News.

Contrast this with the socially awkward experience of sitting shoulder to shoulder with people in a small lunchroom with a TV on every wall and where starting a conversation might be intruding on someone's favorite show. With TVs becoming ever cheaper and larger, their invasion of lunchrooms and other social spaces is increasing exponentially in direct proportion to their pixel count.

This was a "one off" and one swallow does not make a spring, nor one observation a sound scientific judgment. Before every lunchroom is wallpapered with TV screens, it's time we used some of the millions spent on social research looking at their impact on lunchroom culture. Let's start with assessing if we actually benefit from racing, football and cricket tips from "experts" on TV compared with armchair experts skewing what they read in the paper with a dose of biased barracking.

Then let's follow this by analysing if sitting amongst our workmates silently sipping our coffee watching professional socializing on TV morning shows is good for us as a working community.

My vote is to have a lunch room without a TV or a least to turn it off for a while every day. I wonder how many others would vote the same way?