Glued to the screen
With a month of much-hyped soap operas, Ramadan highlights the growing tendency for young Egyptians to spend long hours watching television. Dena Rashed flops down on the couch and lethargically reports
"I watch TV almost eight hours a day. I know it might be unhealthy, but I enjoy it," said Hatem Mahmoud, a 20-year-old student in the Faculty of Economics and Political Science at Cairo University. Although Mahmoud is a full-time college student and plays sports almost daily, he still finds time to enjoy his daily routine of watching TV. While Mahmoud may take this habit further than most, he is still representative of a disturbing trend among Egyptians, especially youth.
A study soon to be released by the National Centre for Social and Criminal Research, an advance copy of which was obtained by Al-Ahram Weekly, has revealed that young Egyptians between the ages of 18 and 30 watch TV an average of three hours per day. The research was conducted on a sample of 2,500 young men and women in seven governorates across the country.
Amal Kamal, head of the research team, said that the study was essential to assess the impact of TV for youth in Egypt. "We have been working on it for months now, and the basic aim of the research has been to highlight what youth watch and the content of the youth programmes," she said.
The research indicated that 38 per cent of the sample watch TV an average of more than three hours per day. Females tended to watch TV more than males, and the older the interviewees are, the less they watch TV. The reasons cited for watching TV were no surprise, with entertainment and relaxation leading the pack, followed by a desire to keep track of the news and generally gain information.
Though soap operas dominate Ramadan, usually sports and news programmes are the top two draws, while youth programmes (talk shows featuring teenagers and young adults discussing daily issues) lagged behind, coming in tenth. This is a reflection of their inability to capture young people's attention as much as entertainment-based shows. As AmrMohamed, 22, said, "There are no programmes that address us as youth, and what is aired simply does not respect our mentality, so we are left with few options."
The research found that youth programmes are watched by 47.6 per cent of those interviewed. The reason most often cited for not watching the youth programmes was not enough spare time. Also mentioned in the research was the inconvenient timing of the shows and the feeling that they were not informative or representative of real-life issues for Egyptian youth.
The research found that Arabic and Egyptian satellite channels are the most favoured by youth interviewed, suggesting "language could be a major reason for their preference, in addition to the fact that Arabic satellites offer a similar pattern of the Egyptian traditions and values".
For Mohamed, TV is an easy way to soak up the latest news. "It is much easier to gain information through TV, and besides I don't have time to read," said Mohamed. "Although I work every day, and I play water polo, I still have almost three hours to watch TV," said Mohamed, "but in Ramadan I watch TV almost five hours per day, especially drama."
This year, in what has become a Ramadan tradition, the public is being bombarded with the trials and travails of their favourite stars on eight Arabic-language soap operas. According to Hoda Zakaria, a political sociologist in the Faculty of Arts at Zagazig University, Ramadan TV presents viewers, especially a frustrated youth, with a substitute for their real lives. "It gets them out of their small flats to another world of outings and fun. It is simply in our blood, we all love good stories," she said.
While some critics belittle the Ramadan soap operas as melodramatic and formulaic, they still represent the best Egyptian television has to offer. While not everyone is as dedicated to the TV as Mahmoud, most people do loyally follow at least one TV serial of the eight aired during Ramadan.
"I am taking a credit course, and I have absolutely no time to relax, but I cannot miss watching Laila Elwi's TV serial," said 24-year-old Shaimaa Abdallah. Although she has not kept up with the gruelling schedule of the daily 10-hour-long TV marathon she followed before enrolling in classes, she still manages to spend two hours watching music videos and American movies.
"TV has become the centre of the family's attention -- members of the family don't talk to each other anymore, but they all gather in the living room and they watch TV together," she added, "it has become the factor that keeps them together in one place."
According to Zakaria, the research came up with results that are neither surprising nor controversial. "It was basically descriptive instead of analysing the reasons behind the youth's reaction to TV," she said. She believes that the survey should have distinguished between those who were employed and unemployed, and whether or not they perform other activities while they watched TV.
Zakaria also believes that youth are left without programmes that manage to be both informative and entertaining. "The problem now is that youth are left with channels that provide only the extremes: either channels that are about pure entertainment with cute TV presenters, or with strict religious channels that provide youth with the other extreme, leaving them at the end with a gap in their personality," she argued.
Zakaria goes so far as to argue that TV programming is not innocuous, but part of a political agenda. "If you provide the youth with very strict religious discourse, then why not accept the same discourse on the political level? There is simply no programming that would allow youth to have a vision of their own for the future."
Al-Ahram Weekly Online : 6 - 12 November 2003 (Issue No. 663)
Located at: http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2003/663/li1.htm