Watching out for TV
by: Dwayne Hastings - Mar 1, 2006 - comment
I’m an HD evangelist. That’s HD as in High-Definition television. We purchased our HD-ready television set in anticipation of the Olympics, and I’m still amazed by it. The high-definition picture is absolutely incredible. Manufacturers describe it as more real than life itself, and now I know what they are talking about. The sharpness and clarity of the images on screen are amazing, especially when the program is a nature or travel documentary or a sports event.
Now, I’m no TV junkie. I’ve been tempted to heed my wife’s plea to throw the set out. Yet I’ve resisted pulling the plug because I believe television has some redeeming value. I enjoy watching the cable news channels, especially the one that purports to be “fair and balanced.” I love to watch football and college basketball. And the older I get the more fascination I have with the Weather Channel. Go figure.
But I realize that with the good comes plenty of bad.
Let me be brutally honest. Television producers, unlike anyone I know, seem to be fixated on one thing—sex. If there were intelligent life somewhere in the universe and if they by chance intercepted our prime-time television signals and saw what was transpiring in the not-so-typical but certainly desperate households portrayed, they would have a very skewed perspective of what our lives are focused on.
According to the “Sex on TV 4” study of the 2004-2005 television season by the Kaiser Family Foundation, the number of sexual scenes on television nearly doubled between 1998 and 2005. Seventy percent of all television programs include some sexual content, up from 56 percent in 1998. The percentage jumps to 77 percent in prime-time. Among the programs most watched by teenagers, 70 percent include sexual content and 45 percent include sexual behavior.
“Scenes that feature talk about sex are more common as compared to the portrayal of sexual behavior. Precursory behaviors, such as passionate kissing or intimate touching, account for the majority of sexual behavior depicted on television,” reads the report. I suppose we can be grateful that “talk about sex,” while provocative enough, is seen more frequently than actual sexual behavior.
What we watch on television impacts our behavior, however, which is why corporations spent $370 billion on worldwide media advertising in 2004.
A 2002 study conducted by the Kaiser Family Foundation and U.S. News & World Report says 72 percent of teens ages fifteen to seventeen believe that sexual content on TV influences the behavior of youth their age “somewhat” (40%) or “a lot” (32%).
Not surprisingly, many teens say on-screen sexual scenes taught them how to say no in sexual situations or how to talk to a friend about “safer sex.”
Still question the power of popular media? A longitudinal study of youth ages twelve to seventeen conducted by the RAND Corporation revealed that those who were heavy viewers of media with sexual content were twice as likely to engage in sexual intercourse over the next year than those who were lighter viewers of the same material.
While the thought of “sexual content” on my high-definition TV makes me more than a little queasy, lurid content certainly is not limited to the television screen. Films, the Internet, and very soon, wireless devices are all brimming with this dangerous material.
Another personal observation: For most of us, watching almost any television program dulls the senses, tends one to passivity, and negatively impacts intra-family relations.
While my wife and I enjoy watching the do-it-yourself channels, I have become no more motivated to become a craftsman around our home. (Actually, I am hoping the host of one of our favorite programs will knock on my door someday soon and ask if he and his band of merry men can remodel my home.) If I am reading a book about home improvement, however, particularly one with photographs, I am far more likely to get up from my chair, grab a hammer, and start to work.
In her landmark book The Plug-In Drug, Marie Winn is less concerned about what we watch than the fact that we are watching, noting television has a “somewhat hypnotic effect” on many people. A child’s “nascent imagination and creativity” suffer from exposure to this “irresistible narcotic,” she writes.
Excessive, unmonitored use of computers, especially when combined with other screen technologies, such as television, can place children at risk for harmful effects on their physical, social, and psychological development, says a report entitled “The Future of Children,” published by The Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University and The Brookings Institution.
And while school districts are frantically working to “wire” every school in the nation with computers with Internet access, no study has revealed a relationship between computer use and an increase in a child’s knowledge or intellectual capacity. In fact, some experts are concerned that computer use “displaces essential childhood experiences” such as imaginative play.
I was initially fascinated with the purported value of educational computer software, but I have to admit that it did not interest any of our children. And while millions of dollars have been spent to provide it for schools, it’s not clear that basic skills in mathematics, writing, and reading are enhanced by it.
“Much of the glitzy new [computer] machinery is either misused or underused once it arrives at school; not only do machines sit idle because of lack of technical support or teacher preparation, but poor implementation of software turns learning time into trivial game-playing,” writes Jane M. Healy in her book How Computers Affect our Children’s Minds—For Better and Worse.
Parents have a critical role to play in protecting their children—young and old—from inappropriate content and monitoring the viewing of appropriate material. How can that be done?
• Limit media viewing. Children eight to eighteen watch TV an average of three hours a day, plus the time spent playing video games and surfing the Internet.
• All televisions sold in the U.S. now have a V-chip, an electronic feature that allows the blocking of television programming based on its rating. Unfortunately, only 7 percent of parents polled for a 2002 Public Agenda Report for the Family Friendly Programming Forum said they had used the V-chip. Most parents (53%) didn’t even know their television had such a feature.
• Have a reliable content filter on your Internet connection.
• If you have cable television, your cable box should provide you with the ability to password protect television programs based on time, rating, or channel.
• Don’t place a television (or a computer with Internet access) in your child’s room, unless you’ve made provisions to limit his or her viewing choices.
• Kindly convey your concerns about programming to network and cable executives, and be just as quick to pass along your appreciation for family-friendly TV fare. Don’t forget to share your thoughts with advertisers as well.
• The wisest thing we can do as parents is to grow our children up to understand that while the world is full of temptation, purity is a worthwhile and achievable goal.
Dwayne Hastings recognizes that television can be a mind-numbing way to pass valuable time and is no alternative to reading a good book, but he still demands to hold the remote when he and his family decide to power up the set.
Further Learning
Learn more about: Family, Pop Culture, Sexual Purity