Your TV Is Smart. Maybe a Little Too Smart.

If you grew up in Uganda in the early 1990s, you may remember when television had one job.

And that job started at 6pm.

Before then, UTV would sit there showing what many of us simply called the colorful curtain.

No Netflix. No YouTube. No recommendations. No account creation.

You could switch on the TV at 4pm if you wanted, but it would basically tell you:

“Madam, we are not yet open.” 😂

Those televisions were spectacularly uninterested in us.

Fast-forward to today, and the television has Wi-Fi, apps, microphones, advertising systems, voice assistants and a whole operating system.

Somewhere between the colorful curtain and Netflix, our TV acquired a technology degree.

This week, I came across a breakdown shared by cybersecurity awareness expert Ant Davis following an investigation by Gamers Nexus into LG smart TVs. The investigation raised concerns around voice data, devices discovered on home networks, viewing information and advertising technology.

LG disputes some of the findings.

But for ordinary households, the bigger lesson is simpler: Your television is no longer just a television.

It is a computer sitting inside your home network.

And most of us do not treat it like one.

When a phone app asks for microphone access, we might pause.

When the TV says:

Accept.

Agree.

Allow personalized services.

We suddenly become very efficient.

Accept. Accept. Next. Finish. Where is Netflix?

So this weekend, take five minutes and check your TV settings.

Look for things like personalized advertising, viewing information, voice features, microphone access, content recognition, privacy agreements and data sharing.

If you have an LG TV, you may also come across a feature called Live Plus. Read what it does and decide whether you actually need it enabled.

And while you are there, check for software updates.

Yes.

Your television needs updates now.

Our parents just had to wait for UTV to start at 6pm.

Look what progress has done to us.

The lesson is not to fear smart devices.

It is to become more curious about them.

When you bring a smart device into your home, do not only ask:

“What can it do?”

Also ask:

“What can it see, hear, collect and share?”

Because apparently, the television has come a very long way from the colorful curtain.