Breaking the Teladdiction
Popular innovations are quickly blamed for next-generation problems. They always have been; Rock & Roll, Hollywood, and Internet have each borne the eye of suspicion. Amidst ill-trusted kin both before and after, the discussion about television continues unabated. TV, America’s favorite babysitter, has been blamed for crimes of every genre she depicts. The fact that television’s in-house influence has yet to wane demonstrates that few people, even the many responsible parents, are buying in to the scare; is this complacence well founded or are we missing the problem? The effect of TV on our children is usually misunderstood.
In 1975 over 95% of American households had TV (Neilsen, 1998); fourteen years earlier, in a time when America had only three television networks, the concern about media influence had already reached national leaders. Newton Minnow, giving his first address as chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, presented an astonishing speech that would change the recipe for network programming. It was a thoughtfully scathing rebuke that made clear TV producers’ duty to nourish their viewers. In his address Minow described the course of a full day of TV programming as a “vast wasteland,” (Minow, 1961, para. 20). As a result, less than a decade later our Lady T.V. experienced a dramatic wardrobe change. With the introduction of Sesame Street and the onset of educational programming she donned the uniform of tutor, the role parents still embrace her in today. Seeing the demonstrated improvement in reading, manners, and vocabulary, all while keeping the kids out of our hair, many of us think of educational TV as something of a practical Mary Poppins. Unfortunately, once the children grow out of the medicine, they remain with a craving for the sugar. And they take more than a spoon full.
Already enrolled as their governess, Ms. T.V. quickly becomes our children’s most sought-after friend. They typically share an average of 3-4 hours of companionship per day (Robert, Csikszentmihally, 2004). This amount of time often increases even as adolescents grow embarrassed of the programs they were raised on. While physical nutrition still lies with what Mom puts in the fridge, the media diet is in the hands that carry the remote. The children move on to whatever programming catches their exploring eyes. Though we might wish our kids would stick to what we tried to raise them on, many parents can’t even guess what their teenagers watched last night (What did your children watch on TV last night? 2005). However loving and devoted, can we expect our council to overrule the countless hours of commercials, billboards, Internet ads, and magazine pages telling kids what to watch? The programs advertised are crafted to appeal to the hormones and emotions already raging in our teenagers.
Kids might think they need TV to keep them socially acceptable. Maybe the programming is furnishing them with the core of their conversations. They may worry about staying on the delivering end of the lines that queue the sit-com laugh track. Ironically, though wearing a disguise less embarrassing to them, TV is still their teacher. The core curriculum seems to be violent behavior (Bickam, Huston, Wright, 2001, pg. 116) and premarital sexuality (Kim, Schooler, Sorsoli, 2006).
Not all TV watching is an effort to fit in. As human beings we have a legitimate need to “take a load off,” and Television has a uniform for this, too. How we take our relaxation is a highly personal choice; some drink, some smoke, and TV won’t complain if we do both with her. As good parents we advise our precious ones against substances abuse but too often we fail to think of television-watching as a fully legitimate addiction (Csikszentmihally, Robert, 2004). Once we check, the expense of it is well documented. Not mentioning the pocket expense, with the cheapest Dish Network services comparable to about seven Marlboro’s per day, our television habits are also among the major contributors to both obesity (Colditz, 1996) and sleeplessness (Cantor, 2001) in America. Perhaps the most costly of all is the raw time spent: studies estimate that by the age of 70, the average American citizen will have spent more time intimate with Lady T.V. than would be spent earning a PhD (Csikszentmihally, Robert, 2004). Is this the best form of relaxation we can come up with?
Minnow recognized the difficult nature of the two-sided TV debate in his 1961 address: “When television is good, nothing – not the theater, not the magazines or newspapers – nothing is better. But when television is bad, nothing is worse.” (para 19-20) Were TV all bad a nation-wide TV ban would be the easy solution. Were it all good there would be no harm in continuing the viewing habits we share. But here, somewhere in the middle, we have to decide in our own homes to prevent this rampant addiction from taking hold. What begins as a babysitter too often becomes a call-girl on the arm of our growing children, not only leading them into trouble but laying the foundation for other addictions. We have the opportunity to remove the acclimatization to virtual dependence that starts with TV as a toddler. This good habit, the habit of not wasting away in front of the TV, will encourage the self-control our children need as they face this digital age. They will be better prepared to be responsible users of Internet, video-games, and the other tools and pass-times that dominate the nation.
It isn’t long before we will be entrusting our children with life in their hands as they earn their Driver’s License. It could be an even smaller interval afterwards that they consider marriage. Until we, as their loving parents, deem them ready to make some of these other choices, pulling the plug on TV while they are young may be the best protection against the epidemic of the Virtually Transmitted Disease.