TV Crack

Ever wondered why you end up watching total crap on the TV? You continue to watch even though you are vaguely aware that you're not even enjoying it and wish you were doing something else. You persevere watching with an uncomfortable feeling that you have no life. You are wasting what few mortal hours you have in the Universe vegetating in front of trash.

TV makes us squander [delete as appropriate]

• Our youth
• Our leisure
• Our life (before Death finally points HIS remote control at us and punches the big red OFF button.)

TV makes us sacrifice our friends, our family, our social life and our hobbies. Strange how TV isn't seen as a hobby. It isn't seen as being up to the status of a hobby. See my point? We are all secretly ashamed of our TV habit.

Our dirty little secret is that we watch TV when we know we should be doing something - anything - else. But we don't. Why?

Because TV sneakily manipulates your mental state. TV places you into a literally hypnotic state of relaxation. Switch on and we are quickly lulled into a mildly pleasant condition of apathy. Beware! Once we are in this state it is surprisingly difficult to wrench ourselves out of it, even if the desire is there. It actually requires a fair bit of willpower to force ourselves to get up and go and do something more worthwhile. That is why we often end up watching TV for much longer than we originally planned.

OK, so TV robs us of our time. But if we accept this lost time as a price we are willing to pay, then TV is as good a way to kill time as any. Isn't it? Not so. TV is not as harmless as it seems.

Forget that you burn few calories watching TV, and forget that TV requires less concentration than the act of eating. TV is harmful in more worrying ways. That familiar looking box in the corner may be literally turning your brain into mush. The really sinister side to TV is that it relentlessly bombards your brain with hyperactive images and sounds. The sheer relentless assault of sensory information overwhelms the brain, which did not evolve to cope with the ceaseless barrage of sensory data the TV spews at it.

How many pointless TV memories have you stored away in your head? (Think images, sounds, names, fictional characters, soap plots, people that have appeared on quiz shows, ads etc.)

1000?
1,000,000?
1,000,000,000?

Do you think all this memory pollution is doing you any good? Imagine if you dedicated all that brain resource to something more useful. You could be an expert on many subjects or have mastered many hobbies and skills.

The sheer quantity of pointless TV data your brain slavishly processes and converts into memories may be damaging that very same brain. I'm not being as melodramatic as I sound, there appears to be a correlation between TV viewing and Alzheimer's. Does this mean that Alzheimer's patients like watching lots of TV or that lots of TV is a cause of Alzheimer's? My money is on both. TV isn't as friendly and harmless as it seems.

Want to quit? Giving up TV is not easy. If deprived of their habit, people who watch a lot of TV suffer symptoms indistinguishable from drug-related cold turkey. The first four days or so are the worst. Can't be arsed to switch off the TV? You're an addict. Try the cold turkey experiment!

Somebody asks, "did you see this program or that show?". I tell them I rarely watch the box these days. Nine out of ten people look at me askance, as if I just told them I live on the bottom of the ocean. They cannot seem to conceive of life sans TV. Ironically.

I find now that because I seldom watch TV, I find TV a pain to watch. Why can't I interact with it? Do I just sit here and do nothing? What is the point? I do enjoy good TV programs, but they are few and far apart and I no longer miss them. Besides, I find it disruptive to have to plan my schedule around them. Buying a DVD solves this, of course, which occasionally, I do. There are no ads (so far) except the annoying copyright warning at the start, that my player won't skip. Surely this unskippable warning is illegal: forcing me to be threatened is a crime as far as I'm concerned. As a result of that petty torment, which is guaranteed to put me in a rotten mood at the outset (I'm supposed to be entertained, right?), I deliberately buy few DVD's, on principle. The threats will not stop a single pirate, but they do stop me (and others of a like mind) buying. But I digress.

My belief is that in its insidious and subtle way TV destroys many more lives than we like to admit as a society. Think of the empty existences of people who sit and watch TV hour after hour. Is this a Good Thing? (Since writing that, I hear that TV has only been legal in Bhutan for four years. Violence, crime and drug use are increasing. It is at least possible that TV contributes to this trend).


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From:	Chris	Subject:	TV / Dinners	2002-03-21 22:01:32
From:	joe doe	Subject:	RELATIONSHIP	2002-10-14 14:45:51
From:	ThatFatMoogle	Subject:	TV??	2002-10-14 16:00:21
From:	andy pandy	Subject:	Dough	2002-10-25 15:20:35
From:	nofx junkee	Subject:	i don't watch tv... BUT...	2002-11-16 06:26:08
From:	MadPole	Subject:	Everybody.....	2002-12-06 12:41:35
From:	Judy	Subject:	Your Article	2003-03-04 17:34:59
From:	ex nihilo	Subject:	TV is not ALL bad as you suggest :)	2003-03-26 17:11:09
From:	tangoking	Subject:	Seinfeld Quote	2003-03-26 18:11:34
From:	Natalie/Augustine	Subject:	TV addiction	2003-05-07 06:37:12
From:	Natalie again	Subject:	Computer addiction/vs TV addiction	2003-05-07 06:45:50
From:	Natalie again	Subject:	Computer addiction/vs TV addiction	2003-05-07 06:46:00
From:	Jim	Subject:	TV Hypnosis	2003-06-07 21:40:18
From:	zarathustra	Subject:	i speak	2003-07-11 19:26:51
From:	Alex	Subject:	ITV's latest crap	2003-12-28 10:39:34
From:	I am Joe Addict	Subject:	ANTI-REALITY TV!!!	2004-04-11 23:09:29
From:	charles	Subject:	TV	2004-04-20 11:57:36
From:	nancy	Subject:	TV out on Monday 6/8	2004-06-05 05:39:28
From:	Seymour	Subject:	warped minds	2004-09-07 20:05:22
From:	Sam	Subject:	TV	2004-10-03 21:31:21
From:	antonio warren	Subject:	t.v. addiction	2004-11-03 16:19:49
From:	big john	Subject:	T.V. addiction	2005-01-20 18:01:24
From:	tina	Subject:	tv	2005-06-27 04:09:05
From:	Maz	Subject:	i am in total agreement	2005-07-10 01:23:25
From:	xchristinex	Subject:	tv rage	2005-08-10 22:00:05
From:	danielle collins	Subject:	TV.....grrrrrr	2005-10-12 20:13:49
From:	Laurie	Subject:	i hate TV!!!	2005-10-17 03:25:38
From:	dickiesboi	Subject:	Thx a lot!!!	2006-01-15 02:12:00
From:	yashraj	Subject:	'crush with the idiot box'	2006-02-02 05:38:34
From:	Steve griffiths	Subject:	tv addiction	2006-04-29 15:39:10
From:	Red	Subject:	t.v	2006-11-14 08:22:12
From:	jonathan	Subject:	nice	2007-03-12 00:58:53
From:	Melissa	Subject:	Boob Tube	2007-05-10 05:26:17
From:	Chris	Subject:	Television	2007-05-16 02:03:22
From:	Thebooklord	Subject:	Television. It is the drug of the nation	2007-06-21 16:46:59
From:	Matrix	Subject:	I hate T.V. but love to watch it!	2007-10-05 16:21:09

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On the talkback comments
	In reply to nofx junkee I felt computer addiction was a subject for another page, but I will say a couple of words about it anyway, especially as talkbacker andy pandy so brilliantly touched on the subject. There are differences between computer addiction and tv addiction, one of which is that computer use usually demands the active participation of the "user". Whether it is computer games, online chat or surfing the web, the user has to provide some mental participation and proactive decisions. In contrast watching television is incredibly passive, being about the least mentally (and physically) stimulating activity known to man or beast. TV and computer addictions also have a common scourge, the sheer physical inactivity of sitting in front of the screen generates an apathy that encourages more use. Both TV and computer addiction are destructive. A recent study in Japan surveyed thousands of computer users and found that people who spend more than five hours a day in front of the computer suffered from lethargy, stress, poor sleep and various health problems. As a computer junkie of sorts myself, I can vouch that days where I am away from the screen are happier than those spent in front of it. Yet I am lured back to the monster. There is something incredibly sad about mankind spending its free time sat all alone in front of flickering boxes. Thanks for the talkbacks so far - Jim