Addiction to Television: the Signs, the Issues and
the Solutions
Mission Statement
There are many dangers associated with
excessive television viewing. We’re going to learn
about the most significant of them.
While some are obvious, others have only been
discovered after a variety of scientific studies.
We will discover that
television addiction is a
very real disorder, as well
as some of the ways to
deal with it.
Socially-Promoted and Available
Cable television:
available almost
anywhere in the
world, with the help
of a satellite dish.
Most people in this world,
whether they can afford it
or not, are
Addiction
A cc o r d i n g t o m o s t
professional
psychologists, an
addiction is “an
uncontrollable
compulsion to
repeat a behavior
regardless of its
harmful
c o n s e q u e n c e s .”
Before we can form a
definite conclusion, we
must first examine the
harmful consequences of
TV.
A Few Studies…
“The average American
watches more than 4
hours of TV each day (or
28 hours/week, or 2
months of nonstop TVwatching per year). In a
65-year life, that person
will have spent 9 years
glued to the tube.”
-The A.C. Nielsen Co.
“Television has
changed a child
from an irresistible
force to an
immovable object.”
 Hours per year the
average American youth
spends in school: 900
hours.
VS.
 Hours per year the
average American youth
watches television: 1500
How Does it Affect the Body?
Eyes become
almost entirely
unfocused in
order to take
in the whole
screen.
Lack of physical
activity affects
balance, motor
coordination, and
general level of
fitness.
The US government's Health
and Human Services
Department reports that
nearly 61 percent of US
adults and 13 percent of
children and adolescents are
overweight.
Although there are
several factors that lead
to obesity, many
studies have linked
television and the
resulting inactivity as a
primary cause.
How Does it Affect the Mind?
are affected drastically,
as television viewing
causes the dominance
of the right brain,
inducing a trance-like
state as well as
inhibiting the left brain
functions
are becoming less important
to children. The literacy
rates over the last thirty
years are swiftly declining.
This affects children later
on as television trains short
attention spans, while
reading trains long
attention spans
Creativity and Imagination
Children who watch lots of TV have
difficulty forming their own
imaginative pictures. This ability is
integral to the development of
dendrites and neural connectors.
Social Development
Television
A Baby-sitter!
Reality becomes skewed
as a result of too much
television viewing and
begins to affect
behavior.
A child cannot develop their own sense of
self with no other entity to interact with.
Questionable Value Systems
With many children watching over 4 hours of
television a day, their developing value
systems are affected greatly by the so-called
“baby-sitter”.
“All television is
educational
television. The
question is: what
is it teaching? ”
-Nicholas Johnson
Violent Influence
Assuming an average of three hrs/day of TV
viewing, by age 16 children will have
witnessed approximately 200,000 violent
acts, including 33,000 murders.
“Television alone is responsible for 10% of youth
violence.”
- Leonard Eron, Senior Research Scientist at the
University of Michigan
The Effects of Advertising
“ Thirty percent of
TV broadcast time
is devoted to
advertising.”
An average child sees
20,000 30-second TV
commercials in a
year…By the time
they’re 65 they’ve seen
approximately 2
million.
“Television is an invention that permits
you to be entertained in your living
room by people you wouldn't have in
your home.”
~David Frost, British journalist
How to Treat the Addiction
Thirty-Day Cold-Turkey Experiment!
Insert good habits into the resulting
void.
Pick up a book.
Start exercising.
Write a Bucket List
Start checking the list off!