Reply #3: Based on personal everyday observation

[Jcrowley]

I'd say the the study understates the impact of brain rottage caused by the tube. To think that people actually discuss what is happening, or about to happen or what they think might happen, on some program must be considered one of the most bizarre and eerily malevolent occurences in the history of this species which deems itself so sapient.

What people are ultimately then wrapping their mental states around is entirely mediated and dangerously fantastical. No wonder the folk walk around with immense confusion and frustration as they attempt to make sense of the world outside the cathode tube.

I recommend this:


However, when you watch television, the only way to escape the images is to turn the machine off. The medium of television is controlled by the sender, not the viewer. Images just flow, one after the next. "If you decide to watch television, then there's no choice but to accept the stream of electronic images as it comes," Mander says. "Since there is no way to stop the images, one merely gives over to them. More than this, one has to clear all channels of reception to allow them in more cleanly. Thinking only gets in the way."

The multitude of technical events and special effects that saturate the viewer throughout an average dose of television occur with such rapid frequency that any response is essentially eliminated. "Since television images move more quickly than a viewer can react, one has to chase after them with the mind," Mander says in the book.

<snip.

One researcher interviewed by Mander explains: "The horror of television, is that the information goes in, but we don't react to it. It goes right into our memory pool and perhaps we react to it later but we don't know what we're reacting to. When you watch television you are training yourself not to react and so later on, you're doing things without knowing why you're doing them or where they came from."

<snip>

"Television offers neither rest nor stimulation," Mander says. "Television inhibits your ability to think, but it does not lead to freedom of mind, relaxation or renewal. It leads to a more exhausted mind. You may have time out from prior obsessive thought patterns, but that's as far as television goes.

<snip>

Why do you think they call it programming?



http://www.turnoffyourtv.com/reviews/Jerry.Mander.html