Turn off the TV

Turn off The TV. Permanently.· Credit Card Balance, Level of Anxiety, Personal Relationships, Health…and TV. They’re all connected. And not in a good way. When you go home this evening pickup your TV remote and ask it “Who’s in Charge Here?”.

TV Can Not Relax You
When you turn the TV on, in effect, you turn the world off.
The viewer has absolutely no control over the images. You can change the channel, and get to watch more of the same.

A key point I want to make: There is a difference between your own thoughts and those poured into you. The medium of television is controlled by the sender, not the viewer. Images just flow, one after the next.

"The television is the easiest, quickest and cheapest way to distract yourself from how you already feel that's ever been invented." Quote from a psychologist

TV Watching doesn’t produce an "empty mind." Images are pouring into it. Your mind is not quiet or calm or empty. What's worse, your mind is filled with someone else's obsessive thoughts and images."

Television offers neither rest nor stimulation. You may experience a time out from obsessive thought patterns, but that's as far as television goes

· Television inhibits your ability to think, does not lead to freedom of mind, relaxation, or renewal.

The function of TV is to create, maintain and constantly reinforce could be called "monkey-mind." What is the good of a jumpy, volatile, scattered and hyper monkey-mind? Any connection to anxiety? We’ll get to that a bit later.

TV Exists to Sell

To watch TV is to be lifeless and unresisting. This is the state that allows the commercials to take full effect and operate our minds for us.
Why do you think they call it programming?
Television is advertising. It is a medium whose purpose is to sell, to promote
The images come at you at the pace of the advertiser; the viewer watches passively.
"When you really think about it, it isn’t a free country -- everything is bought and sold and owned."

Sales, by definition, is the process of convincing someone to purchase what they don't need. Advertising tries to convince someone that the solution to a problem or the fulfillment of a desire can only be achieved through the purchase of a product.
Commercials are the reason for TV: If your head hurts: buy Motrin (or some other pain relieving drug). Is your stomach empty? Drive your Vibe to Jack in the Box or Wendys. Is your furniture dusty? Get some Lemon Fresh Pledge. Every guy wants a fast Mustang and every girl wants to look like Brittany Spears.

How much of what you bought with that credit card ‘balance’ money do you really need and use? See any connection between credit card balances and TV?

TV is Very Big Business – and Nothing but Business

Ten companies in this country control 90 percent of what ordinary people are able to read and watch on their television

Government does not deregulate, but re-regulates and changes the rules to serve the corporate interests. "The U.S. media system -- even its most 'free market' sectors -- is the direct result of explicitly government policies and in fact would not exist without those policies

The Big 10
AOL/Time/Warner 36
AT&T 66
General Electric 130
News Corporation 12
Viacom 20
Bertelsman 16
Walt Disney Co 25
Vivendi Universal 37
Liberty Media 42
Sony 53
Total 437 Billion think they have any influence?

The number of television sets in U.S. households in 2001: 248 million
The percentage of households with at least one TV in 2001: 98.2%
The average number of TVs per home in 2001: 2.4
The estimated average annual rate for cable TV in 2002: $ 416.52
The number of stores that primarily sold televisions and other electronic equipment in 2001: 21,724
245,000 employees work at 6,692 cable TV networks and program distribution firms with revenue of $11.7 billion

"The TV business ... is a cruel and shallow money trench, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free and good men die like dogs." -- Hunter S. Thompson

What is TV Watching Physically?

Herbert Krugman of the Advertising Research Foundation found TV induces a type of "sleeping awake" activity. TV watching will cause the watcher to lose touch with the body - and the brain begins to play." You're not asleep and not awake.

It's midnight and you are staring at the TV and can't turn it off. You sit watching commercials blankly and unthinking.

People choose a position for viewing that allows the maximum comfort and least motion ... thinking processes also dim.

While watching TV our bodies are in a quieter condition over a longer period of time than in any other of life's nonsleeping experiences. This is true even for the eyes ... the eyes move less while watching television than in any other experience of daily life.

We don’t leave that darkly lit TV room and go up into the sunlight, we merely watch an image of ourselves doing this, we fantasize about doing it, and think it's the same.

See any connection between obesity and TV?

It is easier to shorten attention spans and increase distraction than to lengthen attention spans, increase concentration, and calm, quiet and still the mind.

A worker at a TV station says, she thinks "TV is like a drug. . . Sure, just try taking it away from them." One can say it’s the opium of the people.

Where Does the Time Go?

The projected number of hours that adults (age 18 and older) will watch television in 2004: 1,669 (This is the equivalent of about 70 days.)

The percentage of people age 18 that watch television: 94.3%

Americans age 65 and over are more likely to be glued to the tube (97%) than any other age group.

Children in the U.S. will spend more time in front of the television (1,023 hours) than in school this year (900 hours).”

"American children and adolescents more time watching TV than any other activity except sleeping. By the age of 70 they will have spent 7 to 10 years of their lives watching TV." -- The Kaiser Family Foundation

Turn if Off

Many a living room is arranged around the television set rather than for communication or interaction. The interior design of the average American living room is very similar an average American church with its ranscendent altar, lines of homage and gestures of genuflection. Except in the home the altar is a TV.

· Do you watch TV? Are you an expert. Admit it – we’re all "experts,"

· Do this over the next week or so: Watch television for one half hour without turning it on. "I wasted 30 minutes of my time." Is it possible that this is a very valuable waste of time? The truth is we’ve all wasted a lot more than a half hour in front of the TV set.

· The only way to escape the images is to turn the machine off.

· Are you ready to get off the couch, out of the recliner, out of the easy chair and Turn off the TV and set down the remote? It’s a big world out there and it isn’t virtual. It’s real.