There have been some fierce debates over the health impacts of television over the years. There have been even more fierce debates over the lives of fictional TV characters between those heart-wrenched over the latest kill-off of a favourite character, or turn in events of a story line. Have you ever wondered why such fictional scenarios outplay life, and why TV characters become ingrained in our own psyche?
It’s been reported that TV programming actually has an effect on our actions – that storytelling can change our brain function and how we respond to real life daily events.
In 1969, Herbert Krugman conducted a series of experiments investigating the effects of television on a person’s brainwaves. The startling findings suggested that television viewing interfered with Alpha and Beta brainwaves:
“Krugman monitored a person through many trials and found that in less than one minute of television viewing, the person’s brainwaves switched from Beta waves — brainwaves associated with active, logical thought — to primarily Alpha waves. When the subject stopped watching television and began reading a magazine, the brainwaves reverted to Beta waves.”
The results highlight how critical thinking skills are abandoned when in the Alpha wave experience. The ‘daydreaming’ state leaves the person in a deep relaxation and therefore more open to corporate advertising influence.
More recently, Jerry Mander a former ad executive also discussed the damages of unbridled technology like television in “Questions We Should Have Asked About Technology,” in the below clip. As early as the 1970s, he argued for the removal of television. One of his reasons was the “death culture” – the all-encompassing nature of story lines hurtling toward death obsession. Comparable to today, the situation has exacerbated tenfold.
The confusion setting inside the mind, blurring the real and the fiction impacts your life, with some not so obvious consequences such as stress hormones being released similar to the fight or flight instinct, when watching certain story lines. A constant release of adrenaline can impact directly on health as well as mental impairment, and is a cause for concern.
Have you given up television? I did 18 months ago, and at the same time became a member of Anonymous – seeing the world for what it really is. What’s your experience?
