What effects does this have on the campus? First, the college wired the dorms for cable, which wasn't a bad idea because cable is something that we all should have for a variety of programming. Of course, some people would watch cable too much. Now, we have an additional feature which demands more time of the students: the SocComm Movie Channel. Whereas a person can watch most television shows for half an hour to an hour, movies tend to last an average of two hours. Also, without commercials, there is no time for friends to talk during the movie. This severely limits the amount of socialization which would otherwise occurs among friends.
Activities around campus which may take place during some good movies will be in the back of the student's mind. We will see less of our fellow students as they watch more TV. If you think apathy on campus is bad now. . . well, we need not say more.
As an experiment, invite one of your roommates to a campus function, such as Coffeehouse or a Pub Show, and see if they will accompany you. They may not want to go if they are not interested but this is understandable. However, if their reason for not going is that a good movie will be shown, then our point has been proven.
This is not to say that everyone will fall under this spell. Also understand that we love movies as much as the next person. But when mindless activities turn our friends into zombie couch potatoes, do we as a whole lose out on part of the college and life experiences? We must weigh the benefits of the movie channel with the losses that it incurs.