(U-WIRE) Virginia Tech - Recently, some friends asked me to come over and check out their new television. It was worth the trip - the thing is monstrous. It towers over the room like a false idol with a flat screen the length of my arm span.
But it was more than just the latest in HDTV technology; it was a symbol of our society's love affair with television. I recently picked up a book called Amusing Ourselves to Death by Neil Postman. Although it is nearly 20 years old, I was fascinated by how poignant its message still is. Postman asserts that by replacing the printed medium as the main source of communication, television has permanently altered, for the worse, the way
Americans view and influence the world we live in.
Unlike written discourse, television only strives to entertain. It tries to stimulate our senses and emotions, disassembling the cohesive and rational thoughts we have with a barrage of incoherent, bite-sized packets of information.
I'm not writing this article from an ivory tower; I watch my share of television, including the new one at my friend's place. My goal is merely to spark interest in the deleterious effect that television is having on our society and to motivate people (including myself) to spend a little less time in front of it.
Today, television's influence on reality has become so ingrained it is nearly impossible to separate the two. From sports to news to education to religion, the bias of television has penetrated every facet of our world.
This bias is a result of not being in control of the stream of messages we are receiving while watching. A person reading a news story has the freedom to pause, to reflect and to challenge what he or she is presented. But on television, the speaker dictates the story's pace and there is absolutely no break between one story, however joyous or tragic, and the next.
With no time to reflect or question the content provided, broadcasters are able to show anything they want, with little regard for insight or even truth.
There is no better arena to illustrate this point than modern politics. When television hit the mainstream, politicians saw it as the perfect means to spread their message without getting mired down in details. Thanks to television's knack for blending the serious with the trivial, the role of the modern politician has gone from public servant to public performer.
Examples of this conversion are painfully obvious. In perhaps the biggest political circus of all time, Arnold Schwarzenegger recently replaced Gray Davis in the California recall election. In the end, Davis lost, not because he was a bad governor (it takes more than one man to sink a ship the size of California), but because people didn't like him as much as movie star Schwarzenegger.
This was an election with all the serious debate and contemplation of issues of a high school popularity contest. The influence of the television becomes even more obvious when one takes the image-based politics of today and applies them to the past.
Can you imagine George Washington smiling ear to ear for his portrait with an American flag pin on his lapel? Or better yet, picture Abe Lincoln out for a jog in his top hat giving the thumbs up to the cameras.
Yes, the influence of television on reality is everywhere, but just recently the role has reversed. Over the last few years, people have become content viewing reality through television's periscope. The networks have realized that people would rather experience life vicariously through others than going through it themselves.
After all, why fall in love when you can watch others go through its trials and tribulations? Why play sports when you can watch them on television with a beer in one hand and the remote in the other? If you are averse to simply being a spectator, that's no longer a problem.
Today we are asked to participate directly while we watch by answering irrelevant questions over our mobile phones and Internet connections.
Will Joe choose the blond or the brunette? Who will win tonight's game? Who cares? The results of these idiotic polls are thrown up on the screen minutes later, giving those who responded their nanosecond of fame.
When the telegraph was first invented, Henry David Thoreau commented, We are in great haste to construct a magnetic telegraph from Maine to Texas; but Maine and Texas
it may be have nothing to communicate. While the medium is different, the quote provides some insight about television's importance in our society.
It has filled the airwaves with nonsense while constructing a world that exalts triviality and amusement. Then again, perhaps my argument is nothing more than paranoia. It could be that new means of communication create different societies which are no better or worse than their predecessors.
But to quote another famous American, I believe it was Homer Simpson, who shrugged his shoulders and said, I grew up watching TV and I turned out TV.
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Scott Gayzik
