It's only a 30-minute TV break, you say. I question our sense of time - for our clock flows or ticks based on what we choose to do, even during our breaks.

Television was a medium to entertain, to communicate and to connect. And yet, it has replaced everything that nourishes our lives - the dinner chats, the playtime with our kids, the walk with a friend, and the surprise phone call to your sibling.

We return from our short TV breaks to the same couch, in the same house, surrounded by the same people. Except they are all a little distant now.

How do you care about your spouse's car breakdown when people have to flee their country on boats? How do we hear a child cry about an overgrown nail when we mourn kids who die of gunshots? How do we care about a friend falling sick on a rainy day when a hurricane drowns a whole town?

And while we could have heard out the spouse, the kids and the friend, we just spent our compassion. In 30 minutes we gave away our humanity — in front of the screen, to those we may never know, for things we can do nothing about.