Torch, Summer 1982

D r. Sharon S. Biddle has been a member of the speech faculty of Cedarville College for six years. Recently she was appointed associate academic dean of the college . Her teaching interests and expertise lie in the field ofmass communication, an area ofstudy in her Ph.D. program at The Ohio State University . Since this issue of TORCH is focusing on the area of mass media and communication, I have asked Dr . Biddle, the mother of a young communicator, Justin, to share some thoughts about the influence of media. Not long ago, my husband Jim and I traveled to Washington D.C. to fulfill some academic responsibilities . We included our six-year-old son in the trip and "took turns" entertaining him while the other had appointments or meetings. One family excursion we could not miss was a quick stop at the Smithsonian Institute. It was there, however, that we decided that we had "failed" both as parents and academicians. We were busily chatting with our son about the fossils and remnants of early history only to discover that when we turned to face our son, he had darted off to join a cluster of children who were, of all things, watching a filmed version of the artifacts that were available to them only three feet away . The TV version was more compelling than the real thing! Although Jim and I thought we had monitored our son's television viewing, we discovered that a covert message had gripped Justin: TV may be better than real life . I do not need to generalize from my son's behavior to make this point. As Joel Swerdlow wrote, "Watching television is what Americans do more than anything but work and sleep." Therefore, anyone growing up without television is by definition "abnormal ." If that sounds like an overstatement, consider some of the facts: the average American watches about 1,200 hours of TV each year, yet reads books for only five hours per year. One researcher found that there are 200,000 functional illiterates in New England alone. Gallup's research shows that more than half of us have never read a hardbound or paperback book, except for the Bible and textbooks . In his discussion of the effects of TV on the mind, Jerzy Kosinski asserted that America has a "middle-class skid row"-students living in a "mortuary of easy going ." Appropriately enough, brain wave studies indicate that children and adults alike lapse into a "predominantly alpha wave state" (which usually precedes sleep) afteronly thirty seconds of television viewing . ' The result of all this passive exposure to a visual medium is that our children are becoming spectators rather than participators. They are preferring to watch rather than play; watch rather than explore; watch rather than talk . A television talk show host remarked that America is the only country in the world where people watch conversation. One's own set in one's own room has become the "media pursuit of loneliness ." I grant you that TV which teaches our children to be spectators rather than participators doesn't sound like a sinister sin. But a device which consumes four to six hours a day and teaches young viewers to be passive spectators of a sinful culture is, at best, a waste of time. As Amiel said in his Intimate Journal, "Time wasted is a theft from God." Some people consider excessive TV viewing as a nasty habit - "the mental equivalent of smoking" or as "gum chewing for the eyes." Others view it as "stealing from God." Either way, excessive TV viewing is a waste of time - that which we are commanded to redeem. Dr. Sharon S. Biddle