A National Disease?

At any time between four in the afternoon and midnight, at least ten million viewers in Great Britain are sure to be watching television. This figure can even rise to 35 million at peak viewing hours. With such large numbers involved, there are those who would maintain that television is in danger of becoming a national disease.

The average man or woman spends about a third of his or her life asleep, and a further third at work. The remaining third is leisure time — mostly evenings and weekends, and it is during this

¹ For detailed information see Appendix

time that people are free to occupy themselves in any way they see fit. In our great-grandfathers' days the choice of entertainment was strictly limited, but nowadays there is an enormous variety of things to do. The vast majority of the population, though, seem to be quite content to spend their evenings goggling at the box. Even when they go out, the choice of the pub can be influenced by which one has a colour television; it is, in fact, the introduction of colour that has prompted an enormous growth in the box's popularity, and there can be little likelihood of this popularity diminishing in the near future. If, then, we have to live with the monster, we must

study its effects.

That the great boom in television's popularity is destroying "the art of conversation" — a widely-held middle-class opinion — seems to be at best irrelevant, and at worst demonstrably false. How many conversations does one hear prefaced with the remarks, "Did you see so-and-so last night? Good, wasn't it!" which suggests that television has had a beneficial rather than a detrimental effect on conversational habits: at least people have something to talk about! More disturbing is the possible effect on people's mind and attitudes. There seems to be a particular risk of television bringing a sense of unreality

into all our lives.

Most people, it is probably true to say, would be horrified to see someone gunned down in the street before their very eyes. The same sight repeated nightly in the comfort of one's living-room tends to lose its impact. What worries many people is that if coldblooded murder — both acted and real — means so little, are scenes of earthquakes and other natural disasters likely to have much effect either?

Such questions are, to a large extent, unanswerable, and it is true to say that predictions about people's probable reactions are dangerous and often misleading. But if television is dulling our reactions to violence and tragedy, it can also be said to be broadening people's horizons by introducing them to new ideas and activities — ideas which may eventually lead them into new hobbies and pastimes. In the last few years there has been a vast increase in educative programmes, from the more serious Open University, to Yoga and the joys of amateur gardening. Already then people have a lot to thank the small screen for, and in all probability the future will see many more grateful viewers who have discovered new pursuits through the telly's inventive genius.

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