# "IF YOU really want to be happy, throw away your television set" **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [June 29, 2005, 4:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-really-want-to-be-happy-throw-away-your-television-set/310328 "2005-06-29T04:32:46Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 3\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Wallenstein](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/b5a626/32.png) [@Wallenstein](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wallenstein)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2005, 8:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-really-want-to-be-happy-throw-away-your-television-set/310328/61 "2005-07-06T08:10:33Z")
> [@msmith537](#): > > How can someone watch TV and not be influenced by the programming? I’m not talking about crazy over the top stuff. I’m talking about subtle distortions that TV causes in how people perceive the world. "How can someone read books / visit a gallery / go to the theatre and not be influenced by the language / images / drama? I’m not talking about crazy over the top stuff. I’m talking about subtle distortions that books / art / theatre cause in how people perceive the world. " Same argument, surely? Theatre’s often been accused of distorting the truth (in fact, some would argue that’s the whole _point_ of theatre, likewise art and literature). In that respect TV is no different to any other (visual) artistic medium. It’s just that it’s today’s “choice of the masses” and so gets blamed for society’s problems. For the Victorians it was music-hall that was the root of all social problems - in Europe it was _Rite of Spring_ - and for the Nazis it was books and paintings. There’s a great deal of “top down” snobbery involved in the opposition to TV - all the negative effects that have been described in this thread can be applied to culture across the board, apart from TV’s appeal to the masses. ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2005, 4:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-really-want-to-be-happy-throw-away-your-television-set/310328/62 "2005-07-06T16:11:57Z")
While you have a good point, **e-logic** , I can think of two counterarguments, ways in which TV watching differs from those other forms of culture you mentioned. One is that people are more likely to watch TV with their critical faculties turned off (or at least, so I suspect). Most people, when they pick up a book or go to the theater or visit an art gallery, are prepared to _think_ about what they experience. They go expecting to be confronted with a particular point of view, that of the author or artist or playwright, and to accept or reject or weigh and consider that point of view. WIth TV, it’s not uncommon for people to just plop down in front of it and passively vegetate. The other is that when you watch TV, at least commercial TV, you are being exposed to deliberate, slick, expert attempts to psychologically manipulate you for the economic benefit of those doing the manipulating. ---
**Author:** ![Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2005, 5:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-really-want-to-be-happy-throw-away-your-television-set/310328/63 "2005-07-06T17:59:42Z")
> [@Manda JO](#): > > I wonder how much advertising has to do with that, or if the study controlled for watchings ads. I mean, much advertising is designed around making you feel shitty about yourself/your life My favorite quote from the film [Roger Dodger](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0299117/): > [@Roger Dodger](#): > > Roger: You can’t sell a product without first making people feel bad. > Nick: Why not? > Roger: Because it’s a substitution game. You have to remind them that they’re missing something from their lives. Everyone’s missing something, right? > Nick: I guess. > Roger: Trust me. And when they’re feeling sufficiently incomplete, you convince them your product is the only thing that can fill the void. So instead of taking steps to deal with their lives, instead of working to root out the real reason for their misery, they go out and buy a stupid looking pair of cargo pants. > [@e-logic](#): > > A lot of TVs here in the UK come with a revoluntionary gadget called an “off switch”. “An off switch. She’ll get years for that.” > [@pokey](#): > > TV is weird because it’s like a person with a terrible personality. It’s like its own culture and in Canada you don’t even know if it’s US culture or if it’s just TV culture. It gives me a bad case of xenophobia though. I see it in my minds eye as some grown up party where you picutre a bunch of people like Paris Hilton, George Bush, Oprah, that girl from Trading Spaces and a mom from Iowa all sit on a white shag carpet watching Angelina Jolie tell a story about how her dog makes a funny face when it poos and then lazer beams shoot out of everyone teeth and then some people in wal-mart uniforms usher in naked Jessica Simpson and everyone snorts coke off her naked breasts while Dave Chappelle sits in the corner weeping for humanity with his all-seeing eyes. Then the Barefoot Contessa comes in with goat cheese snacks and two skinny 19 year old male models who have been kept in the forrest for 12 weeks with shag haircuts wearing distressed designer clothes and fight to the death and the winner gets an X-Box. In the background, someone young wearing a lot of eyeliner is taking a dump on a DVD biography of Winston Churchill. > > **I’ve never done acid…** Uh-huh. 😉 Well, anyway, great post. As a non-televisor owner and an only very occasional watcher, I’ve noticed how _unstimulating_ and often mean-spirited television programs are. With a handful of notable exceptions, you can watch any drama can easily plot out the action ten or fifteen minutes ahead. It’s more predictable than a Michael Bay film. And sitcoms tend to be full of characters doing things that in real life would get them ostricized from their peer group or arrested for stalking. And modern radio is even worse; I won’t participate in the carpool 'cause I just can’t stand to listen to Tom Likus for an hour a day, and or DJs who think that fart noises are the high point of 21st century humor. Oh, and I just point my furniture at the bookcases (and the fireplace). But then, I’m kind of a retro-type lad anyway. Stranger [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-really-want-to-be-happy-throw-away-your-television-set/310328.md?page=3)