the box

This page considers 'television addiction'.

It covers -

• introduction
• anxieties

     introduction

Claims of television addiction or videogame/computer game addiction (and precursors such as pachinko addiction) offer a perspective on -

• media reception of claims of a new pathology or increasing epidemic
• debate within the health professions about the characterisation of disorders, the potential confusion of causation with correlation, and the appropriateness of specific therapies
• government responses to community pressure that reflect broader social discontents rather than particular medical problems.

Critics have claimed that television is addictive, is a 'plug-in drug', erodes community and individual health, and fosters a range of ills from violence to gendered discrimination.

Those claims encompass mere viewing of television and exposure to particular types of content, from soap operas to cartoons (hotbeds of violence) and feature films (inducing violence, sexual licence and substance abuse).

As with cyberaddiction, those claims are disputed by addiction specialists, by industry and by people who are sceptical about misuse of 'addiction' as an expression of what Alan Dershowitz dismissed as "the abuse excuse".

They are reminiscent of past jeremiads against the movies (particularly viewing by children, women or the lower classes - all deemed more excitable and suggestible) or reading novels, comics and the yellow press.

There is disagreement about what constitutes addiction to television (or to games), whether the supposed addiction is a manifestation of an underlying disorder, and the number of addicts. Is addiction to the box measurable? Is it simply a matter of a critic's perception that the 'victim' has 'over-used' the medium and thus is addicted?

     anxieties

Aric Sigman, author of Remotely Controlled: How Television Is Damaging Our Lives (London: Vermilion Press 2005), in describing television as "the greatest health scandal of our time" claims that "viewing even moderate amounts of television -

• May damage brain cell development and function
• Is the only adult pastime from the ages of 20 to 60 positively linked to developing Alzheimer's disease
• Is a direct cause of obesity — a bigger factor even than eating junk food or taking too little exercise.
• Significantly increases the risk of Type 2 diabetes.
• May biologically trigger premature puberty.
• Leads to a significantly elevated risk of sleep problems in adulthood, causing hormone changes which in turn increase body fat production and appetite, damages the immune system and may lead to a greater vulnerability to cancer.
• Is a major independent cause of clinical depression (of which Britain has the highest rate in Europe)
• stunts the development of children's brains
• increases the likelihood of children developing ADHD
• lowers adult libido
• is a leading cause of half of all violence-related crime.

A sceptic might ask whether pastimes such as reading novels or exposes of media ills has the same effects ... and whether some people confuse correlation with causation?

Salient works on addiction to the box include Marie Winn's The Plug-In Drug (New York: Penguin 1985) and Unplugging the Plug-In Drug (New York: Penguin 1987), Jerry Mander's Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television (New York: Quill 1978), Robert Kubey & Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi's Television and the Quality of Life (Hillsdale: Lawrence Erlbaum 1990) and 'Television addiction is no mere metaphor' in 286(2) Scientific American (2002), 62-81 and Robert McIlwraith, Robin Jacobvitz, Robert Kubey & Alison Alexander's 'Television addiction: Theories and data behind the ubiquitous metaphor' in 35(2) American Behavioral Scientist (1991), 104-121.

Responses include Why TV Is Good For Kids (Sydney: Pan Macmillan 2006) by Catharine Lumby & Duncan Fine, 'The Cultural Power of an
Anti-Television Metaphor: Questioning the “Plug-In Drug” and a TV-Free America' (PDF) by Jason Mittell and Grand Theft Childhood: The Surprising Truth About Violent Video Games and What Parents Can Do (New York: Simon & Schuster 2008) by Lawrence Kutner & Cheryl Olson. Other works are highlighted in the following page

 

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