The Case Against Television

[Music] there was a child went forth every day and the first object he looked upon that object he became and that object became part of him for the day for a certain point of the day or for many years or stretching cycles of years in that poem Walt Whitman says that what we look upon we become if that's true should we be worried should I watch TV but I Know It's Just Junk let's do it to relax come in the house and turn it on the truth is I can't not turn it on the average American Home has the television set going over seven hours a day every day all year round the habit of watching television doesn't seem to be hurting anyone and that may be its greatest Danger let's look at the price we really pay for free entertainment take family life for instance we never talk at dinner the way we did when I was growing up I don't mind it stops the fighting they never notice what I cook so so I just don't buy anymore what is it we're supposed to say to each other anyway older Americans watch more TV than anyone else it gives them the illusion of company but the truth is that the more they watch the more isolated and alone they become soon it becomes too much effort to get dressed get out and face actual conversation with someone but the elderliest aren't the only ones who are cut off from real life heavy television Watchers report feeling alone even when they're watching with some in pre-television times people tended to get together with friends to relax talk share experiences have fun these relationships form the basis of a support system that could be counted on in times of need this can't happen unless somebody turns the television off [Music] there's nothing wrong with staying home with your wife and watching TV it's our way of spending time together and what about the segment of our society which has the most to do in the least amount of time what group must learn thousands of eye motor skills must memorize by trial and error hundreds of new words must experience scores of emotions some to be expressed and some to be restrained children have much to learn in the first five years and most they must teach themselves by direct experience but do they children between two and five average nearly four hours of TV a day and for many it's much much more it steals precious time from those years when there is so much to be experienced firsthand if it weren't for TV I'd never get a chance to fix a meal have you ever tried to do anything with a two-year-old under your feet all day long don't they learn from TV I I've read that somewhere hey sure they learn they learn the commercials they learn about new toys and they learn that their attention span only has to be five seconds [Music] although almost everyone can understand the Life Learning television robs from children not everyone is aware of the reality grounding it robs from the rest of us the fact is that most of what is presented on television is especially created for that little screen and has no reality other than that being there on the screen is everything once again the median is the message and the message is what appears on the screen is important and gradually In Spite of Ourselves the things and people we see become important to us the more times a person or product appears on the screen the more important it becomes television is not showing us what is important in the real world but what is important to television itself its own Survival it creates its own value system of what is real [Applause] as you watch an evening of Television you start to feel that you are part of a national American Community proceeding from show to show you experience a form to it and it's friendly and familiar and it seems like your world it isn't your family is your world your body and its health is your world your soul and your spirit and your creativity are your world what you accomplish is your world what happens on your block is your world these are the things that make up the Matrix of our life here's where we can be effective during the time of our life the very brief dwindling time of our life there's another aspect of Television that weakens our grasp on reality and it has to do with the sheer volume of programs available to us every night there's so many different programs that when the time comes to go to bed they're all mixed up in my head and I usually dream about what I've seen when we take in too much stimuli a part of our mind automatically shuts down it's a survival mechanism and it happens when we've watched hours of television I hate that feeling when the TV's turned off everything looks so strange for a while people who watch a lot of TV have to shut down on a constant basis shutting down becomes an automatic reaction to stress non-involvement and passivity become character traits and we get cheated out of the experiences that make life worth living [Music] this is NewsCenter 4. good evening a majority of people cite television news as the most valuable TV programming it begins the evening it starts everything out I will miss the six o'clock news for anything but because of the restrictions of time even in news a fiction is created of the nightly Network news shows that run 30 minutes eight minutes of that is commercials during the remaining 22 minutes a summary of that day's events is read off at teleprompter by responsible looking men and beautiful young women this summary is comprised of what a few people who run that Network news Department think will be important to most of the American people frequently they are wrong but no one really complains we accept the fact that television time cost a lot of money and after all we can always read it in the newspaper the trouble is we don't 75 percent of Americans use tv as their main source of news so what you see is all most people get we're watching Dan Rather give a story on a new tax bill which Congress passed today the television report runs 20 seconds here's the coverage of the same story in the newspaper the story is a thousand words and if read aloud would take six minutes it gives a breakdown of the areas in which the bill is going to make changes how much those changes will be and who will be effective an accompanying article gives a blow-by-blow account of the Senate debate and that's another thousand words television cannot give in-depth coverage the sad part is that viewers have the illusion they're getting they aren't but there's another reason new stories are so brief research has shown that people can only take in so much at a time and if that limit is exceeded the normal reaction is to move away from the source in other words change channels a network can't take that risk so everything we see on TV is broken down into short time units called segments so that they can be easily digested some would say pre-digested and that way we viewers will stay interested without having to strain too much see if you and enough people like you change the channel it'll be registered in the little boxes of those 1700 families whose television watching is monitored by the AC Nielsen company and the rating of that show will decrease the rating is based on the number of sets turned to a channel during a particular time slot advertising rates that is the amount of money networks and stations can charge for a commercial like this are based on that rating so each station must do everything it can to keep you tuned in at all times and television has something else going for it unknowingly it reproduces the condition of trans induction or what is more commonly known as brainwashing when a person sits comfortably in a darkened room remove from all sensation except a moving light their body tends to drift into an alpha State this is a condition normally associated with daydreaming or falling asleep the result is that for many of us it becomes almost impossible to turn the TV off unless we're jolted by our heads nodding or disrupted by a radical change in the program and once in this state we'll watch anything ninety percent of viewers misunderstand what they see on TV and worth they develop a distorted view of reality in tests it was shown that heavy TV Watchers have exaggerated ideas of the crime rate the teenagers want prestigious professions but make unrealistic estimates of the education required for them and then there is the subtle warping of our value system you see for the average seven hour a day television watching Family the single television category that makes the most impact on the brain is that great onslaught of illiterate materialistic demoralizing claptrap called commercials letting these companies advertise in our living rooms is the bargain we make for receiving the programs the average American viewer watches eighteen thousand commercials a year eighteen thousand messages like to buy something he probably doesn't want and certainly doesn't need enter most of our minds in a process there one way or another they're more remembered than anything else because they use proven techniques of imprinting they are comprised of the shortest length segments employ the most amount of visual tricks catchiest music and are of course repeated constantly you think you're immune to all this well think about it would millions of dollars a year be spent on TV advertising if it had no effect it works because of commercials we have become Relentless consumers our conversation has sprinkled with brand names and so are our clothes [Music] TV advertising has its own morality true to the values of the marketplace on television improving appearance is more important than improving character and decisions are based on impressing friends with the cleanliness of our dishes our hair our laundry impressing others is more important than being ourselves even if we have to fudge since television's impact in the early 60s the average SAT scores for high school students have gone down step the current generation is the first to be less skilled than its parents an adult performance level test found that 20 percent of the American population is functionally incompetent in being able to perform basic kinds of tasks like reading a wanted filling out a job application accounting change but who cares about all this who cares if we are influenced by a source which doesn't nurture us who cares if we become passive observers of Life strangers in nature and lonely with those closest to us if our grasp of reality is shaky if we lack natural support groups to help us in times of need if we are superficially informed by Legions of conflicting experts who cause us to view everything with mistrust accepting the necessity for television itself why should we care because it's diminishing the quality of Our Lives because it puts our democracy at risk cause it makes us susceptible to leaders Who present themselves like talk show hosts and makes us vulnerable to easy answers for our nation's problems answers that can be presented in short segments you see it's not the programming that is the problem it is the habit of watching a habit which is hard to break but once done opens you up to a depth of thought and feeling and knowledge which television never even touched go out and experience the world first hand and discover how powerful you are [Music]