TV hostage

I had a nightmare of sorts a few weeks ago that a television set followed me around the house wherever I went. It squeezed through nooks and crannies, even negotiated the sharpest of corners in my house. It was insisting upon itself and I was running away and hiding from it as best as I could but the TV set was winning. I was so exhausted and frustrated by the time I woke up but I was also thankful that my TV set was exactly in its place and that it would not show me anything unless I order it to do so. That was a nightmare for me because I could do without television for weeks, even months on end. However, to some people, my nightmare may just be what they want in real life. They are "TV addicts." This is what the latest Special Issue of the Scientific American Mind (Vol. 14, No. 1, 2004) reveals to us as the entire issue explores The Brain: A Look Inside.

Before you label yourselves or people you know as "TV addicts," let the article within the issue by Robert Kubey and Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi entitled Television Addiction is No Mere Metaphor, qualify it for us. "TV addiction" means that you spend an inordinate amount of time watching TV and doing so more often than you really intend; you try to cut down on watching TV but have failed in your efforts; and you give up more important activities for it and experience withdrawal symptoms if you stop watching TV altogether. Okay, now you can scan in your mind people you know, including yourself, and call them "TV addicts" marked with the stamp of science.

I need not elaborate the obvious point that watching television per se is not at all the issue here. Television programs can be uplifting and educational as well as entertaining, especially after a long day at work or if you just intend to space out for a while. But it is too much of it that is the problem. What does the research consider as "too much TV"? Four hours a day of TV or about a quarter of your waking hours. One of the reasons is that while the brainwaves tell us that you feel passive and relaxed while watching TV, they also signal diminished mental stimulation compared to mental stimulation from "reading." This just means that reading a sentence from a book is far more stimulating, in terms of actual brain activity, than hearing a line from any fair-faced actress about her broken heart from the boob tube. What is even more interesting is that after watching television, the feeling of relaxation disappears while the passive feeling and reduced sense of alertness stays. In other words, you are stunned and disarmed like a victim but not relaxed. But you do not feel this and mistake the passive feeling as also meaning you are still relaxed and feel compelled to watch some more. And studies have shown that this is so even if the viewers report feeling less and less satisfied with what they are watching the longer they watch TV.

It is curious but the thing that enables TV to hold us hostage is in our biology. We humans are consummate "seers." We have a hundred million photoreceptors in our eyes to make sure that anything that light strikes will register in our eyes and our brain. That is 70 percent of all the sense receptors in the human body. However, it is ridiculous to say that we humans evolved simply to entertain gadgets that can shoot as much lighted images to our brains. Although I often wonder about this when I see kids hooked day and night in computer gaming. Seeing a lot does not say anything about the depth of sensing since the sense of touch, hearing, smelling and tasting seem to be able to cultivate depths of understanding beyond the reaches of what can be seen. For example, seeing a sheet of Mozart’s music will not move you as much as hearing his majestic pieces. When you see someone you have not seen for a long time, you feel you have to come close to them to take their hand, kiss or embrace them. Seeing "duryan" does not even come close to smelling the odd fruit, and tasting Dutch chocolate ice cream is something the eyes cannot even approximate in understanding and pleasure.

Scientist Ivan Pavlov carried this fact in our biology further and pointed out a behavior that may explain how our TV addiction springs from our sensory love affair with light and its technical term is "orienting response." It just means the eyes (and ears) react to sudden movements or stimuli. This reminds me of a line then repeated by one of the salespeople recruiting students to their speed-reading courses when I was 13. She said, "The eye follows a moving object that is why you have to trace with your finger the lines you are reading." I guess they were aware of Pavlov’s insight but I am not so sure about speed-reading. I could not afford it then even if I wanted to so I do not know if their method works. But I think it is safe to say that if you love to read, you will read a lot and at a pace that your own understanding and pleasure require. But that is what is wrong with TV images, especially the commercials and music videos, the article says. The images and the messages they are supposed to convey are so disjointed and cut so fast that they are just there to "hold your attention" in that little space in your brain to make you remember it when you are out there in the stores choosing over an army of products but not really remembering and understanding why. I don’t know about you but that bothers me.

It is none of my business to tell you to cut down on watching television. But I think we should all be reminded not to be held hostage by only one sense, or only one gadget that attracts that sense. The remote control is really controlling you. Ever wondered why lovers close their eyes when they kiss? To get rid of the visual distractions that may take away from the moment that matters. Think about it. You might be missing out on what really matters by holding that remote.

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