Yet again, there was an article in the local paper about the impact of television on our culture. The study cited in the article claimed that 40% of our children regularly watch TV by the age of 3 months. Three Months! It also said that 90% of our children watch TV an average of 1 1/2 hours per day.
Contrary to common perception perhaps, parents are "plopping" kids down in front of the television set not for its built-in babysitting advantages but for its perceived educational benefits. According to this study, this is a misunderstanding of television as a medium. Television, as the study says, actually works against learning rather than to foster it. Among the detrimental consequences of television watching upon our young people is: poor grades, attention deficit problems, obesity, and an increase in violence.
Now, I realize that we shouldn't take every study that comes along as the gospel truth. But I also realize that this study is just part and parcel of a bigger picture that has been "preached" since at least the 1950s. Television, as the sermon goes, does negatively affect thinking. It works against thinking by not giving enough time to interact with anything that comes across its picture tube. Take the typical news program, thought by most to be among the most "educational" programming on television. The average news story requires about 1-2 minutes of air time. Then, it's on to another news story for another 1-2 minutes or to several 30 second commercials. The time allotted is hardly adequate to treat accurately and comprehensively these news stories, much less to digest them accurately and comprehensively and to think about them critically.
This is at the same time that our educational system is imbibing the use of television in the classroom and working more on memorization than on critical thinking skills.
It's no wonder that we are producing people who, though they may make excellent grades, cannot think critically about a given subject.
That's the problem. There's much more that could be said and needs to be said. But we need to concentrate on the solution. Television is here to stay. The solution is not to throw out our TV sets. The solution is to compensate for the impact of television in our homes and in our schools. How do we do this?
Thoughts?
2 comments:
I enjoyed reading this post because it addresses some negative aspects of television that many people don't seem to notice. I tried to find that news article on the internet but was unable to.
I recently read Neil Postman's book, "Amusing Ourselves to Death," which I would highly recommend to everyone. I couldn't begin to summarize his message in this blog, but he very accurately describes how television has completely shaped our culture.
I agree with you in that we cannot simply throw out our television sets. As far as how to compensate for the impact of television, I think that first of all we need to be aware of television's impact on all of society as well as be aware of several of the things you mentioned in this blog. Before we praise television for its educational value, we need to realize that it is very limited in what it is able to communicate. By ruining our attention spans, it has also taken from us the ability to educate ourselves or to think critically, and in many cases has caused us to become apathetic. This can certainly be redeemed, but only if we are aware of it in the first place. I also think that it is important to teach younger generations how much our thinking can unknowingly be shaped by television.
Emily Bethea
Thanks, Emily. I have posted a few times on Neil Postman's book, Amusing Ourselves to Death. I think it is a helpful book that alerts us to a fact that many of us overlook, namely, that the medium affects the message that is being conveyed.
One of the things I hope to foster via this blog is to get us all to think about our culture and the things of our lives and to think about them from a Christian perspective.
Hope this finds you well!
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