subject: Why Television Is Ruining Your Life [print this page] According to the A.CAccording to the A.C. Nielsen, the average American watches 3 hours and 46 minutes of TV each day. That represents more than 52 days of non-stop TV-watching per year.
By age 65 the average American will have spent nearly 9 years glued to the tube.
The British watch an average of 3 hours of TV a day. This means they will spend more time watching TV in their lifetime than they will spend working!
Are people addicted to watching TV?
What is the impact?
What happens when, instead of going after your dreams, exercising and taking care of your health, working towards your goals, fulfilling your destiny you simply drop like a lead balloon in front of the tube every night?
Impact on our Happiness
Richard Layard, a lecturer at LSE, points a finger to TV as the main culprit for the fact that, despite our purchasing power and incomes having risen 5-fold since 1950, we are not any happier.
He explains that people now compare their financial situation, their possessions, and their partners, not only to those of their friends or neighbours - like they did until 60 years ago - but to those of celebrities and superstars they see on TV day after day.
Men compare their spouses and women compare themselves to the skinny 18-year-old girls portrayed in ads.
In India, they noticed a marked increase in domestic violence and a tendency to fritter away money saved up for children's education, in remote areas that until recently did not receive a TV broadcasting signal.
It gets worse.
Impact on our Finances
Over the last 50 years, Advertising agencies have perfected every possible kind of psychological technique to manipulate us into buying or believing ANYTHING!
How do they do that? Well, television is an incredibly powerful medium. It has a very strong emotional impact, through the simultaneous use of sound, picture, and motion. All our senses are engaged. Furthermore, when you are "zombified" in front of the screen, you are very receptive to any messages that come to you.
We have been conditioned through simple repetition.
It is estimated that the average American is bombarded with over 3,000 advertising messages daily. These messages are designed with ONE end in mind: to make us spend our money on things we didn't even know we needed. We end up giving away our financial power.
John Commuta, author of "Turn Debt Into Wealth", accuses the "Coalition of Four" - Media, Advertising, Credit Lenders, Merchants - of showing us a very luxurious lifestyle, repeating that message over and over again until we're completely conditioned, and then telling us we can have it NOW.
As a result, more and more people get into debt, becoming in effect 'slaves'.
We may get the trappings of wealth, such as a nice car and a nice house, but we don't ever truly become wealthy because money that we should be saving and investing is instead being channelled to our creditors!
You are so busy trying to 'keep up with the Joneses' but the Joneses are BROKE! (by the way, the road to achieving absolute financial freedom starts by spending less than we earn and investing the difference).
Impact on our Peace Of Mind
Michael Moore, in his acclaimed Oscar-winning documentary "Bowling For Columbine", came to the conclusion that American TV, and especially the News, were responsible for creating a culture of fear and paranoia that has led to spiralling gun possession.
Indeed, 54% of television broadcasts are devoted to stories about crime, disaster and war.
Sensationalism sells! Getting people scared SELLS!
Unfortunately, sharing positive, inspiring, uplifting stories may be nice, though not as compelling television watching
The News rarely choose to show real issues that affect people's lives, such as pollution, poor health habits, corporate crime, but instead seek to titillate the public by sensationalising stories on crime, drugs, violence, and all kinds of dangers and scares.
Impact on our Spirituality
The Media have been conditioning us for years about 'Individualism', 'Status', 'Being Successful', 'Being Better Than The Rest'.
This is the "Me, Me, Me" era.
This re-enforces the idea that we are separate from each other. That we must compete against one another.
And of course, if you want to be better than the rest you must buy our products! Buy our status-conferring luxury cars! Buy a yacht! Buy a Rolex watch!
Every spiritual teaching I know talks about the inter-connectedness of everything. How we are all ONE. How, ultimately, there is only one of us around, so who are we really hurting when we hurt 'someone else'? Who are we trying to compete with, huh?
Watching television, I feel, has resulted in people disconnecting with their true Self and with their spirituality. They feel as if their life lacks meaning and purpose. They lack inner peace. They lack equilibrium.
Impact on our Health
Over 200 ads for "junk-food" are broadcast in the US during Saturday morning cartoons.
The processed foods industry and junk-food industry spend billions in TV advertising every year trying to get you to buy hamburgers & fries, chocolates, biscuits, sweets, alcohol, coffee, dairy products, and all sorts of dead foods that provide your body with NOTHING! These products are actually KILLING YOU!
And then the pharmaceutical industry spends billions more to convince you to buy drugs to 'fix' the SYMPTOMS of your unhealthy lifestyle! (notice: they never CURE your health problem, but just sell you DRUGS to cover up the symptoms for a little while)
Watching TV on a regular basis is setting you up for destroying your health and poisoning yourself and your children!
YES, IT'S THAT BAD.
What is the alternative?
When was the last time you learned something from TV that you actually applied in your life, resulting in an improvement of your quality of life?
Did you learn how to improve your relationships? How to earn more money? How to be more healthy or lose weight? Has TV ever improved your career? Has it made you a better parent or a role-model? A Leader? Has it ever made you more effective in living your life and taught you how to enjoy every moment of it?
Has it ever truly made you happy, or has it just been used to numb your senses and help you "zone out", so that you don't have to think about life for a short while? Is it really entertaining & relaxing? How does it compare to, say, an evening out with your friends, or meditating whilst listening to some relaxing music for 10 minutes?
What are all the little things you really enjoy in life?
Seeing your friends, playing games, listening to music, making love, concerts, having a walk through beautiful surroundings, swimming in the ocean, a lovely hot sandy beach, gardening, picking flowers, doing a sport or exercising, fooling around with your dog, reading a good book by an open fireplace, camping with your children, the thrill of learning something new or the pride of getting a job done well, words of encouragement or support or love, the feeling that you have contributed to someone in a meaningful way, contribute in making this a better world
These don't cost much, do they? Does TV really figure in it at all?
When was the last time you did any of the above?
Wouldn't our lives be better if we did away with TV?
The solution? Simply SWITCH..OFF!
You won't be missing out on anything, I promise! Nothing's going to happen while you're away, trust me!
Here's my challenge to YOU! Spend the next 7 days TV-free. Can YOU do it?
I promise you a dramatic explosion in your quality of life if you do take on this challenge!
