Television: Confirmed drug, Part 2

Last week's article at "http://www.suite101.com/articles.cfm/med..." brought up the notion that television was harmful to brain activity as it acted as a drug, and harmful to the thinking process, accordingly, as it is used by the advertizing industry to brainwash us into buying products we don't need based on its ability to alter our moods, and as it is used by the powers-that-be to brainwash us not to question their authority or to rebel against it on our own behalf. The article in question can be read at "http://www.disinfo.com/pages/article/id1..." and is called "Television: opiate of the masses" by Wes Moore.

There are several reasons TV can have this effect. As promised last week, I now will state the reasons that TV watching can be dangerous to your health and welfare.

1. TV watching is a repeated exercise, not because the programming is good, but because it is a positive reinforcer: "any behavior that leads to a pleasurable experience wil be repeated, especially is it involves little work." This explains why folks might want to keep on watching, but the article goes further to say that most folks cannot give it up once they start watching it for any length of time. This is because TV is similar to doing opiate drugs: Since brain activity switches from left (logical, organizing) hemisphere to right (intuitive, emotional) hemisphere, the crossing over of brain activity from left to right brain increases levels of endorphines, which have the same chemical structures as opiate drugs like heroin or opium. Thus activities that release bodily endorphins become addictive and habit-forming. The result? Studies have proven that folks who have voluntarily turned off their TV sets or who have participated in sponsored-TV-turnoff experiments go through "withdrawal" symptoms similar to what recovering drug addicts go through.

2. The higher-level brain (cortex, neo-cortex) activity brought about by reading, writing, painting, solving math problems, organizing, etc. is shut down by shifts to lower (limbic, reptilian) brain activity during Tv watching. The limbic brain cannot distinguish between fact and fiction, between fantasy and reality. Studies show that too much lower brain activity leads to atrophy of higher-level activities, much as if disuse leads to atrophy of a limb.

3. EEG readings show that alpha waves (low-level brain wave activity) are produced by watching TV, primarily because of the radiant light produced by the cathode ray tube. (Does this mean that computers do the same thing? The Internet does the same thing? Now that would be something that needs to be researched!) Thus, TV effectively shuts off most brain activity.

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