[PLUG-TALK] TV

glen e. p. ropella gepr at ropella.net
Thu Oct 6 01:18:34 UTC 2011


Keith Lofstrom wrote circa 11-10-05 10:56 AM:
> The largest influence on 21st century kids is television.  
> Children watch 3 to 4 hours of TV a day - that is more than 
> 20,000 hours of TV by high school graduation.  Some claim that
> really learning an important skill (playing a musical instrument
> at performance level, programming, competitive sports) takes
> 10,000 hours.  Thus, today's young adults have at least two
> fewer major skills than their ancestors.
>
> [...]
>
> "TV childhood" has reshaped our culture, to
> the extent that adults spend 5+ hours per day watching TV,
> instead of participating in their communities.  500+ billion
> hours a year.  That is 50 million lost master skills a year. 

While I share (some of) your disdain for TV, I have to point out that
"lost" is not the right concept for the change you highlight.  The most
important part of my objection is that life was more difficult, in
general, for most people, prior to TV.  I'm not saying that TV has made
life easier for those who have them.  But the rise of TV has been
accompanied by the rise of many other technologies, many of which have
made our (at least in rich cultures) lives so much easier that we have
lots more free time.  Is it enough to compensate for the time we spend
watching TV?  Probably not.  But it's not a zero-sum game like you portray.

In addition, while it may be true that _some_ skills are being just
plain lost by those who watch TV, other skills are being gained only by
the TV addicted.  True, we may not be able to identify whether these
skills are beneficial or useful in any way.  But it's biased to ignore
them entirely.  One skill is that of rapid task-switching (otherwise
known as ADD or ADHD).  I know it may not seem like a skill.  But for
those of us who can't even think straight when 2 things are happening
simultaneously, the ability to rapidly switch tasks (and/or multitask)
seems like it would be very helpful in some circumstances.

Another potential benefit might be a tendency for relaxation or
down-time.  There's plenty of evidence that much of the population
doesn't get enough rest, meditation is beneficial, etc.  We have to be
open to the idea that some might use the TV as an aide for meditation or
a kind of cybernetically enhanced dreaming.

Overall, the path of the TV through our culture looks much the same as
any other technology: cell phones, video games, personal music players,
credit default swaps, etc.  All of them change the animals that use
them.  This is what lends credence to hypotheses like the extended
phenotype and extended physiology.  A species' artifacts (e.g. a nest or
a city) become part of the environment that regulates the evolution of
the species.  You may not like the change and you may believe it makes
the species less fit.  But we're a long way from any real evidence that
the TV is entirely detrimental to our survival.

-- 
glen



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