very Monday, my friend Julie and I watch The Bachelor. She lives in South Texas, and I live in New York, and if it’s a good episode—all right, if it’s an OK episode—we end up on the phone together during every commercial break. This has become, unexpectedly, how two busy friends reconnect each week, because though the conversation begins with beefy Travis’ curious asexuality, or the way Moana is being crucified, it inevitably ends with discussions of our own lives and private concerns. I don’t know about Julie, but I’m less interested in The Bachelor than I am in simply talking with her about it.

I’ve thought about television a lot recently, for two reasons: 1) I live and work alone in my apartment; and 2) I will soon be writing a television and film review column for TheMorningNews.org. The former means I watch television too often, and the latter gives me good cause for doing so. Often, I use television as the white noise behind which I write less challenging assignments or take a breather to check email. You and I both know a walk might be better. But hey, come on, it’s awful cold in the city these days.

Almost all of us have a love-hate relationship with the boob tube, and I am no exception. As a little girl, my relationship with television could best be described as that between a toddler and her favorite binky. My parents took note: For one stressful stretch, they limited my viewing to one hour a night. And in what seemed akin to suburban torture, they refused to get cable, even when MTV was, like, the most awesomest thing in the entire universe. I don’t begrudge them this in the slightest. To them, television was an empty-headed panacea for boredom—they wanted my brother and me to play music, and read books, and write stories, and invent our own imaginary worlds. The fact that we both currently work in creative fields might suggest they succeeded.

And yet.

I watch an awful lot of television. Is it bad? It could be. Even as reputable sources offer reasons why television actually makes us smarter, I entertain the fantasy of raising my children without it. (I also entertain a fantasy of living in a remote locale in California where waves crash against my toes outside a creaky door, or a farm in Iowa where I grow all my own vegetables.) Of course, when I have two screaming toddlers and precious little beachfront property before me, I will be the first to reach for Blue’s Clues.

I guess that’s how I view television these days. It can make your life better. (And I say that as someone who watches Oprah every afternoon, so this is not to be underestimated.) It can suck up your life, too. But it is weirdly nice when television becomes a conversation, when you learn something from the process. Maybe, as the PR firms suspect, that happens at the watercooler. Maybe that happens with your partner. Maybe that happens on websites. Maybe that happens with your dear friend, and if so, that's very cool.

Which is to say, if you watch "The View," I'm expecting your call. I have some serious thoughts about that.