The Tube Boobs

I was raised in a time when civility and virtue were still considered to be prime attributes, although the WWII generation would complain of us that we were crass and vulgar compared to them. But what’s going on now with the “culture,” by which I mostly mean TV, movies and music, is that civility and virtue -- be it humility, honesty, intellectuality or any of the others -- have been mostly thrown out the window. In fact a character on a television show these days, whether it’s a comedy, drama or reality show, is now hooted and booted for displaying virtue, and is liable to be derided as a “wuss,” a sucker or a loser.

You know how every week there’s a DVD or two that comes out that you just have to see? And how there’s 20-25 hours of stuff on TV that’s just part of your schedule to watch? Well, what are you going to do in the future when there are 10-12 DVDs per week and 45-50 hours of TV that you don’t feel you can live without? (If you think many people are zombie-brained now...)



Speaking of such things, a study showed that the average college student watches over 30 hours of television per week. This was inclusive of the buckled-down students, so that means that many of these kids are wired in to 35-40 or even more hours per week. And this doesn’t include time spent on video games, online chatting, text messaging and downloading/listening to music. And "hooking up." And, what’s that other thing they sometimes do? Oh, yeah, attending class and studying.



A national survey revealed that only 22% of high school students spend more than one hour a day on homework. 55% (perhaps the more honest among them) said they studied less than 3 hours per week. Of that group, 65% reported that they made mostly A’s and B’s, which says more about the dumbing down of standards than the abilities of the kids.(Further note: Almost all of these homework hours are accomplished with some combination of TV, music-player and text-messaging in operation, thus diminishing the concentration level.)



The real corruption of television and movies, more so than the overdone sexuality and violence, is that misbehavior is constantly being shown with little or no repercussion, often with little notice being given to it at all. In other words, the abnormal is treated as normal, even as being "fun stuff." For the generations between 5 and 35, brought up more by mass media than parents, these depictions are a strong teaching tool, instructing them as to the boundaries of acceptable behavior.

One of the insidious things about television is that, since it’s written by New York and L.A. people under general instructions to create edgy, exciting characters, the resultant populations of TV show dramas and comedies, are hardly like real people, even metropolitan-based people. Since this involves a kind of symbiotic reflection with the mass of TV viewers, i.e., they model themselves somewhat on what they see portrayed on the tube, than this mass media – and to a lesser extent movies – is creating a warping in the population’s sense of itself, actually affecting people’s behavior in a mostly negative way..