Mood Swings:
Dangerous drugs
We were at a social dinner and the man sitting on my left, an American living in London, said "Marx was dead wrong when he wrote that religion is the opium of the masses. The opium of the masses is TV." His sister who is living in the United States had, for the sake of her children, banned TV from her home and he and his wife were wondering if, also for the sake of their children, they should do the same. Having read about the nefarious effects of TV on children's development, and knowing that my sons in London and Chicago also control TV viewing in their homes, I heartily agreed with him.
A couple of weeks earlier we were having a quiet family reunion in Ras Sudr, when the TV was switched on to one of those musical channels. All of a sudden I felt that the two teenage boys in the group had been sucked away from us into the fantasy world shown on the screen: a handsome singer wearing hip clothes and dark glasses, playing the piano in an Italian Palazzo surrounded by beautiful, adoring, undulating women! Another handsome singer, also in dark glasses, was driving a expensive speeding sports car with a gorgeous woman at his side. I looked at the eyes of the boys. They were glassy, unblinkingly transfixed on the screen. In few seconds, the boys had been transported to a beautiful, pleasant but unreal world. What do drugs do? They also transport you in few seconds to a pleasant, unreal world. Am I saying that TV is addictive? There are numerous studies that show that TV is psychologically addictive and a book has been published, The Plug-in Drug by Marie Winn, which argues this case convincingly.
Psychological addiction occurs when a variable ratio reinforcement schedule is associated with a pleasant reward. If a man knows that every 10 times he plays the slot machine he will hit the jackpot, he will play the slot machine a few times and then stop. He does not become addicted. But if he does not know when he will get his reward, if the reward is on a variable schedule, sometimes coming after 5 trials, sometimes after 200, he will keep on trying to get his reward. And after one reward he may go for two rewards, maybe even three, because he does not know when the rewards will come and he is always hoping they will come at the next attempt. He has become psychologically addicted.
Similarly, most TV programmes use 4-7 cameras to cover different perspectives of the subject. We watch a programme and we see the subject from one perspective, then within a few seconds the second camera kicks in and we see another perspective, then a third perspective, all of which occurs in a random variable fashion. Subconsciously, we continuously anticipate a different perspective. This draws us to the programme. If we want to stop watching it, we find excuses to wait a little while longer. We are no longer free to stay away from the programme. We have become psychologically addicted. The process itself (several cameras broadcasting on a variable schedule) is addictive. If you pair this with an unreal reward -- the video clip -- you would expect it to be still more addictive. If you need convincing, just look at the glassy eyes of a 14-year-old watching a video clip or a 5-year-old watching Sesame Street. This is why many parents in the US do not let their children watch more than 30 to 60 minutes of TV a day; some do not even let their kids watch TV at all, knowing that psychological addiction can predispose chemical addiction.
Does this mean we need to forego TV watching? I would not go that far, but I would recommend that, for the sake of our psychological welfare, we need to control how much TV young people are allowed to watch. I would say not more than half an hour for young children and one hour for older children and adults, excluding some extra time for certain programmes such as natural history shows and the news which use only single-camera shots. We should not leave the children unattended in front of the TV, allowing it to act as a baby- sitter. Asking the children questions, making comments about what they see, and indirectly teaching them how to evaluate what they see and not to take it at face value, will break the hold that TV tends to have on young minds.
This week's contributor is an Egyptian expatriate living in the United States.
Al-Ahram Weekly Online : 6 - 12 March 2003 (Issue No. 628)
Located at: http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2003/628/li3.htm