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Scientific American on Television Addiction
Etcetera writes: "The Drudge Report had an interesting link to a Scientific American article on Television Addiction. Talks about some of the quantifiable effects TV watching can have on the body. Very interesting read. There's also a paragraph or two at the end about game/computer use and why that might be a *little* bit different. But, similar to Jon Katz's essay Browsing Alone, they conclude that when a habit interferes with a growing, active life, it should be taken seriously."
blah blah blah.
This is similar in nature to reports that Elvis's gyrating hips are the undoing of young Americans.
Just because somebody has a PhD in back of their name doesn't give them any special insight.
I was a tv addict. Even though we didn't get cable back just a few years I would sit down and watch whatever was on and when it was done I would watch what was on next. It didn't have too be good, just on (ok, maybe not football, but that is about it). Out of the 5 channels I would find the "best" show and watch it. I was distructive and time wasting. When someone else was watching tv I would sit down and watch. The tv would just draw me over. It really stinked. When I went off to RIT I didn't bring a tv, life was good and I learned a lot and worked on projects. When moving into a new home with a few other guys for the year I found one of them bringing a tv, but not only a tv, but a tivo! I thought I was in for it, but to my surprise found just the other way around. With tivo I rarely ever view actual tv when it is on. When I had some free time I would turn it on and see what was in the lineup. These 10 shows that we all liked and only these 10 shows would be listed. I would watch 1 and when the show was over it didn't continue over to the next show on that station, but brought you back to the menu. There I was able to asses what I had to do and if something was more important I would turn off the tv knowing it would all be there for me later. There are two factors to this that halped me. First being when the show was over it was _over_. Second being that I didn't have to stay around and watch the 10 oclock news to see the top story of xyz sense I knew that tivo would record it and if I could see it when I had the time (and only the 2 minute story that I wanted to see, deleting it after that).
To sum up I moved out of that house and recently found a store shelf tivo as the local circut city for $50. You can guess that I walked out the door with a grin that day.
-Benjamin Meyer
Do you changes clothes while making the "chee-chee-cha-cha-choh" transformation sound?
I tend to watch more TV in the winter, depending on what is happening "in Town"
I think TV addiction is a pretty clear problem in Suburbs, ever drove through one in the early evening? There is nothing going on there, you don't see anyone on the street, nothing.
For me, TV becomes less and less " a problem" great, so i have some time to watch Enterprise? I watch it, I am out ? Oh well, sometime they show a re-run.
I think TV addiction exists, but I am not so sure that the TV alone is at fault. There are some interresting books out there relating certain behaviour to where you live, and quite frankly after reading this I cannot see myself ever move away from a big city into the suburbs. (And yes, I HATE suburbia, maybe because I moved from Europe to North America).
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I don't doubt it. There is a difference between watching tv and watching a tv show. When a person decides to watch a tv show, that's 30 minutes to an hour that the person has planned. When a person sits down to watch tv and channel surfs all afternoon, that's a period of time the person has made the choice to forego planning of one's activities in deference to programming schedulers.
The state is the great fiction by which everyone tries to live at the expense of everybody else. ~F. Bastiat
I did a little math just before new years. I watched about 4 - 5 hours a day (That's 3 - 4 on a weeknight and about 6-7 on Saturday and Sunday).
I've been doing this since I was about 10. (My parents never stopped me) And now I'm 28.
So that's 4.5 Hours x 7 days x 52 weeks x 18 years.
That's 29484 Hours or 3.36 Years of my life. An entire 12% of my entire life!
So I decided that I would cut it out till June. And give it a rest. Man it's hard. The first thing I realized was the reflex that I had developed. Come home sit and watch. Wake up sit and watch.
But the biggest thing was the amount of time I had. I always wondered how people find the time to keep there place sparkling clean, stay in shape, pack a lunch for work, and become good at sports.
Another thing that I think TV does, when TV is you primary source of entertainment and social interaction it warps the mind. TV lets you hand out with hot chicks, go on a thrilling adventure, and fall in love. You begin to believe (subconsciously) that you really do have a relationship to these people. It tricks the mind into believing that you are a smart, good looking, intelligent person with a ton of interesting friends and stories.
As soon as I pulled the plug I was clear that I was an awkward, quite, unkempt person, with no girlfriend and few friends. But now I can take the new time I have and focus on becoming the person I want to be.
Well I'd like to end on a positive not, but I would be lying if all you had to do was pull the plug to fix your life. No all pulling the plug does is show you how much work lies ahead of you. Its going to be a long time before I can change my life so that I don't miss TV.
Okay, suppose Joe is in an poor famine-ridden country where food is extremely scarce. Let's go through the above definition:
Is Joe a food addict? By that definition he is. Let's bring Joe to a bountiful country where food is the easiest thing possible to get. Joe doesn't spend much time thinking about food, has a rich social life, and can control what he eats better than most of his neighbours. Is Joe and addict here? By that definition he definitely isn't.
What changed? The environment. Was Joe *really* a food addict in the famine-ridden country?
Some very important things are missing from this definition.
One point in the article was right on. Managing your media time is hard at times. Particularly bad times. Escape is easy. This problem is not totally the viewers fault though. A lot of it has to do with how television is structured today.
Recently I got rid of the Dish Network system in my home. For about 2 months, the family went basically nuts. More fights, and more sleep. After a while, things changed. The kids began to use the computer more for reading, chatting, and of course, games.
After about a year or so of this, I have noted some real changes. The family in general does more things together, homework is actually getting done, and the kids enjoy sports more and they actually read! (both online and books) We all still like our television, but now everyone has focused on the thing or two that they really want to watch, rather than watching everything all the time. The perception about television has changed for the better.
As a kid, I did not have cable. Just broadcast television. Watched everything of interest, but also was outdoors a lot, and in front of the computer a lot. A lot like the family is now. Later on when cable became avaliable, I noticed the demands on my time. There was so much to relate to! My viewing went way up, but my enjoyment did not in general. Sure there are good things on cable, but a whole lot of time is spent either choosing, or waiting not actually watching with real interest.
So there is something to the large number of channels that changes TV for people. You go from the perception that there may be something good on tonght, to a feeling that you are always missing something good. I now know the truth in this. 150 channels means 148 channels full of crap at any one time. Not really any different from broadcast television in the practical sense, but the perception is very different, and that perception changes habits. Hey! it's the syndication tax!
So to wind this up and go a shade off topic, I miss premium television, but am annoyed by the fact that it is not offered without all the crap. Kind of like a PC without windows. Hard to find.
Most people here really don't like the idea of pay per view, but in the context of television, it would be a very good thing provided that one would be able to actually choose what they want to view. Producers would have to compete on the merits of what they produce without the filler programming filling in the dead time. I would easily pay the same dollars for some choice as to what comes in and what does not.
The media companies know this so, pay per view will be added to the endless wave of junket media being pimped right now as the "best in quality home entertainment" or some other equally mind numbing crap, when it could be a vehicle to make TV enjoyable and manageable again.
Tv is addictive by its very nature. Problem is that the producers exploit this feature rather than actually produce quality programming.
So for now, I will remain a jaded television consumer looking the TiVo over closely while finding other interesting things to do.
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You can be addicted to anything, including work, sex, health food, doing dishes, volunteering, sleeping, walking, etc. Almost anything can be used to avoid dealing with unpleasant emotions or situations. Addiction not about how much you use something, or what you use, or if it is 'physically' addictive, but how it is used.
The article claims that is TV is being used the same way one might use a narcotic. Care to dispute this?
Of course humans have a disorder for everything: They uncannily find new 'substances' to abuse. The easier people can justify their behavior, the more indignant they feel when people point it out. (Yeah, people use religious thought to avoid the unpleasant fear of dying. Ever try to pursade a Christian to think otherwise?)
I'm sure you can make a list for almost any activity an average person does during the day, and you can find a 'disorder' for each of them. Sleeping, eating, cleaning, working, drinking, studying, etc.
I can't belive such a retarded post made it to a 5. Hey Jennifer, have you graduated high school yet? Did you read the article? Did you have to write this post to slam 'intellectuals' for giving you the bad news?
I'm not convinced that it's really addictive though. When I have access to a TV, I watch it far too much. When I don't, I don't miss it at all, and I've gone as much as a year without watching any measurable amount of TV, and with no side effects due to withdrawal.