The sneakiest dealers won’t tell you they are dealers. Behind sunshine and smiles, they’ll happily sell you something pleasing, and before you know it, you exhibit the classic signs of addiction. You spend a lot of time using it. You use it more often than you think you should. You think about giving it up or using it less but can’t. And when you stop using it, you feel a sense of loss.
Enter TV addiction. Obviously, most people don’t consider TV a drug or we wouldn’t be so flippant about watching it on average three hours a day. But TV, like drugs, elects a very specific physical response and initial use usually leads to prolonged and repeated use. In addition, heavy TV users exhibit lasting effects, apparent long after the viewing is done. Like autism and alcoholism, society needs to accept TV addiction as a real affliction so we can learn not just to turn TV on but also to turn it off.
When humans encounter changes in our environment, our body reacts in a certain way called “the Orienteering Response” (OR). First described by Pavlov, and later by Sokolov, the OR allows our body to gather information by slowing the heart and dilating blood vessels to the brain. Although this causes a slight mental stress, the OR makes us temporarily more alert, and after about four seconds our body returns to its natural state. Unless something reactivates the OR, starting the process over again.
TV is just such a thing. Common filming techniques such as zooming, changing camera angles and cutting to new scenes all activate the OR. This is done about once every second, constantly reactivating the OR to ensure viewers are paying attention. TV holds viewers captive, busy with the task of processing and reprocessing the changing lights. Constantly undergoing OR exhausts the viewer, making mental tasks more difficult to complete after a TV session — which in turn encourages more TV viewing.
But it’s the motivation to switch “on” that really defines “TV addiction.” Immediately after turning on the tube, people feel relaxed. However, switch it off and the feeling of relaxation leaves just as quickly. This quick gain/loss encourages the association between relaxation and TV. It is also typical of the “quick on/quick off” response pattern of other habit-forming habits.
When people are rewarded immediately for doing something, they are likely to continue to do it. Likewise, when stopping something causes an immediate bad effect, they will avoid stopping. This explains why people often watch much more TV than they originally intended. One show blends into another which melts into another. It’s not just the shows that are interesting. It’s the idea of overcoming out of the passiveness that keeps viewers changing channels. Many people feel drained after watching TV because after the TV is turned off the relaxation leaves but the passiveness stays.
This passiveness pervades the rest of the viewer’s life. Television and obesity links abound as lack of motivation for exercise contributes to lack of time. In addition, heavy TV watchers have more problems spending time alone or creatively and are more distracted in work. In extreme cases, people’s social interactions become based entirely around TV, robbing society of their unique contribution to the world.
Everyone has something unique to contribute to this world. TV shows are the result of someone’s creative contribution. In fact, TV itself contributes many things to our society. It brings sports shows to fans that can’t attend. It spreads news, connecting humanity on far ends of the globe. It makes us laugh, cry and scream. The answer to TV addiction is not to stop using it all together but instead to learn to use it in moderation.
Right now, people don’t look objectively at their viewing habits, perhaps because they don’t realize just how extensive they are. Simply tallying up the amount of TV watched on a weekly basis will surprise most people. But it shouldn’t, and people need to start living consciously. Watching just “one more show” subtly robs viewers of their lives, especially if they are watching out of compulsion, not decision. Viewers have the key to control but first they must notice the bars of the cage.
TV addiction won’t land Americans in jail or cause them to kill themselves, but it might kill their spirit without them even realizing it. Each moment glimmers with infinite possibilities of what could be and its up to us to watch the moments, not the TV’s, flicker.
E-mail Katie at [email protected].
