Why TV Doesn't Work

I

Would you normally imagine yourself walking into your living room and sitting down for two to four hours and not doing anything? Would that kind of rest help you be more productive in your day? Would it be good for your body to be idle for four hours each day? What might happen?
While many of us could probably benefit from an occasional self-induced time out for a couple hours and while there is solid scientific evidence that regardless of the religious component, a daily time of meditation is good for our health, the truth is our culture is an active one. We would be bored stiff sitting in a quiet room for four hours. Many of us would fall asleep for a good part of it. But most would simply get up, leave the room and go do something, seeing the time as a total waste. If that be the case, then we can firmly establish that when we daily take to the family room to sit around the TV for four hours, we are not doing it for the rest.

The component that is different is the media.  Brain wave studies have shown that our brains do not perceive everything going on around us. Instead, we take a snapshot of the sights, sounds, smells and react to the changes compared to that snapshot. It explains the whole idea of change blindness. Ernst Weber threw some math at this explaining that the change in our perception is equal to the change in the stimulus we receive divided by the instantaneous stimulus. An over simplified equation would be dp=ds/s   where where dp is the differential change in perception, dS is the differential increase in the stimulus, and S is the instantaneous stimulus. The actual equation uses some statistical comparison as

. But that is not important right now.


As an extreme example to explain this, if you are just sitting at your desk working, aurally, you are somewhat oblivious to the clacking of the keyboard, the click of the mouse, and the whir of the air conditioner and so on. The tiny changes in sound do not attract your attention given that your instantaneous stimulus is the sum of these inputs with little change or consequence. However, if the smoke alarm goes off, you are startled and begin running a litany of questions through your mind assessing the situation. The sound of the smoke alarm or phone ringing has a much higher consequence value than the air conditioner. So our brain assigns it a higher value and gives it more notice.
The same thing happens with our visual environment. As we stare at a beautiful painting, we can muse over it, how the artist was feeling, why he chose color combinations, what the statement might be and so on. But the picture doesn't change and shortly, we really aren't looking at the painting, just staring and thinking. However, when we are watching TV, something very different happens thanks to a filming technique started by the British in 1928 just after sound was added. Filmmakers started using multiple cameras to capture the action at multiple angles. Then, the shots were edited to use the angle that best depicted the action. Body movements were shown with the full cover shot. Dialogue by actor A was shown with the close-up from the right camera and actor B's response was shown by the close-up of camera C and so on. The result is that when we watch TV the S in the equation above keeps changing.
By constantly changing then entire field of our vision every few seconds, it would be like driving down the highway and every time you blinked, you found yourself in a completely different geography. You start out driving down I-77 in downtown Charlotte. In a blink, you are on a two lane road, still in Charlotte but on Sardis road. Another blink and you find yourself on Trade Street uptown. Blink, I-85 at Concord Mills. Blink, the street your house is on. With each blink, you brain would have to process the entire image in your field of vision, compare it to past images and extract known information to give you a sense of your environment. That would certainly make the commute much more exciting in a Secret-Life-of-Walter-Mitty kind of way.
Actually, a more accurate comparison to watching TV would be driving down the road. After a blink, you are seeing the road from the left lane looking over at you. Blink, you are seeing your passenger seat from the perspective of the right lane. Blink, an angle from above the car. Blink, back in your seat.
Very early on, the film industry figured out that the multi-camera shot kept people interested. I don’t know if they got hold of Weber and Fechner’s work or just counted the sleeping patrons at the theater. But the point is that the reason we never land on a camera angle and stay there is so we don’t become disinterested. It also explains other camera effects.
The Blair Witch Project took the camera off the dolly for the entire film and shook it during filming to mimic a home movie. As a result, viewers struggled the whole movie to reach a sense of calm, an effect the filmmaker was looking for in their horror film.
Fight scenes are typically shown with extremely short shots for each angle again increasing the viewers discomfort during the fight scene.

II

All this filmmaking science combines to have a unique effect on our brain. Our brain activity can be measured using thee wavelengths, alpha, beta and gamma. Without getting too far into the science of it, alpha waves are most active during REM sleep and when your eyes are closed in a wakeful state and during meditation. Alpha waves tend to suppress beta waves. Beta waves are associated with normal consciousness. Gamma waves are credited with bringing harmony to our perceptions, like a conductor in a symphony. When we watch a scene change on TV, it creates an orienting response in our brain reducing the gamma and the alpha waves during TV watching. They both struggle as the beta waves make sense of the sensory input change. The alpha waves return rather quickly whereas the gamma waves take longer to normalize. The result is that your brain is constantly switching from relaxed to alert and back again.
As a crass comparison, watching TV to rest at the end of a long day is like plugging your brain in to recharge and then flicking the power switch on and off every three seconds for four hours. Twenty minutes in the living room in silence with your eyes closed praying or meditating is far more valuable to your body than four hours of rest in front of the TV.
So right now, you are thinking that I really haven’t told you anything new, that TV is bad. So why do we watch so much TV. I took a moment to do some inventory.
1. It allows me to be doing something and nothing at the same time, thus avoiding doing the things I need to do. It is a tremendous tool in the procrastinator’s arsenal.
2. Occasionally it is entertaining (rarely)
3. I keep hoping I will find something that amazes me. On the contrary, I keep finding the formula the scriptwriter uses for their show and it completely ruins any chance of there being a surprise.
4. It is a surrogate for emotional input. By watching the hero struggle and prevail, to a small degree, we live vicariously through them and feel a little of that emotion. For example, watch Seven Pounds. I dare anyone to keep a dry eye. Like pornography, the attachment to the TV grows diminishing the real life relationships increasing the need for the surrogate. The surrogate concept is a paradox akin to an addiction.
5. It is the least expensive form of leisure available.

III

Four times 365= 1460 hours per year or 91.25 extra waking days. If I did all the things I needed to do, would I have any of the 91.25 waking days left to do something interesting? Absolutely!
I think it is ok to be entertained once in a while. Just not 91.25 days per year. How about 1 day or 2 hours per month?
GO out and find amazing things beyond the edge of the screen. 91.25 more days of activity will give you a healthier body to enjoy the 91.25 days.
Take that 91.25 days and build real relationships.
If that isn’t enough, one third of the broadcast television experience is commercials. Imagine the absolute pandemonium and chaos that would ensue if the government or your church told you that you had to contribute 30 days each year to community service making our country better. Yet we submissively watch 30 waking days of tv commercials every year. That’s like blocking out the entire month of September to not go to work or school or shop or church or anything but wake up and watch commercials! That’s 6.5 years of your life, just for the commercials.
Here’s something even more staggering. There are six people in my house. That’s 8,760 hours per year, 547 waking days per year, 182.5 of them watching commercials.

The truth is, my children will never blame me later in life because they couldn't watch a TV show. It will all be on demand for them later in life anyway. But they will lament a misspent youth. And several years from now, near the end of my time here, I will look back and weep over the lost opportunities spent in front of the TV.