TV is Bad (part 2)

In part 1 I like tv and movies, they are a powerful medium for storytelling but they tend to surpress the imagination and turn us into emotionally regulated passive zombies.

As a generation we would rather watch tv than actually do anything we see on tv (or perhaps something genuinely out of the box). This addiction like symptom is because tv gives us maybe 50% of the emotions of real life with none of the risk.  We can feel a little sad without tasting real sorrow and with the knowledge that the credits will roll in about 7 minutes so we never have to deal with it again (well, I'm still upset about Wash dying but you know...).  We can feel the exhilaration of flying a banshee without the risk of breaking our necks in a fall from Pandora's floating unobtainium mountains.

The result is our life's emotional experience is compressed into a narrow range where we are safe from failure but also safe from ever doing something. But we are able to delude ourselves with simulated ups and down at the click of a button. If stories teach us anything they should teach us that adventure is worth the risk and discomfort and painful emotions.  It's time to stop watching other people's stories and start living our own stories.

Tv has also substituted for human interaction to a great extent hindering our attempts to venture into the world. Robin Dunbar theorized that the brain has a limit to the number of relationships it can maintain (somewhere around 150). I would be interested in seeing research on this but it would seem like the complicated relationships we absorb from the ensemble of a tv show would count against this limit bumping off real people whom we could be building relationships with. For instance, if you've watched a season of The Office you can tell me how Jim feels about every other person and how they feel about him (if you haven't seen The Office, pick your favorite show).  That's brain space that could have been used for real people.  (I would think that once you stop watching a show you brain archives everything making room again but how many shows are you watching at one time?)

Tv teaches us functional and dysfunctional behavior and shapes culture in part 3.