My Not So Secret Affair with the Written Word

Brian has yet to learn that I should never be taken into an establishment that sells books so I frequently find myself in positions where I am trying to convince myself to only buy five books instead of five hundred while Brian looks confused that he can’t just walk in, buy what he needs and leave. Which is what happened Sunday afternoon as we were trying to finish up our Christmas shopping. Brian had finally thought of the perfect gift for his father’s girlfriend which helped us to finish our holiday shopping in a bookstore. As he hunted through Borders as a man on a mission, I browsed the beautiful aisles filled with books I have yet to read. Each unread book was a friend I had yet to meet.

I read the way some people eat or play video games. I live for a good book. I can ignore my husband for hours on end if the content is compelling and it is not unusual to find me hiding in a strange location with a book. I rarely bring books to my job because I don’t trust myself to not sneak off and hide in the building with my latest page turner in tow.

I purchased four books on Sunday afternoon. Brian had reached the “enough” point with my roaming and since we had taken separate cars, he moved on to the next errand. I still needed to ponder what “excessive” really meant in a bookstore. All of my purchases were impulse buys but that was to be expected. I was able to rationalize by telling myself that since the writers are all striking in Hollywood, there really isn’t anything good on TV except Law and Order: SVU reruns and I’m not sure Brian will be tolerating that for much longer.

Which brings me to my big question: if I didn’t really watch TV anymore, would my book purchases still be excessive? What if Brian and I read at night instead of tuning into a million different TV shows? Would our lives improve for the better? Or would we find that Saturday mornings were used to catch up on TV? What if Brian read instead of internet surfed?

I’m not sure if I’m quite at a point where I’m interested in unplugging my TV but I think I need to cut it back at this point. Brian and I regularly watch over 3 hours of television a day. Considering I watched less than one half hour of television a day at the time Brian and I were engaged, it raises flags about the change in my behavior. I think maybe the most I can commit to is trying to cut back to an hour of TV a day. It is, at least, a start.

It's the Boob Tube for a reason

I was never much of a TV watcher as a kid. I was born in '82 but my mother did not purchase a color TV until around 1988. We didn't have a VCR until 1990. The only time I encountered cable TV was at my grandparents' house and while I would find that entertaining for a little while, I had a tendency to quickly bore and move onto other things. Starring into a box for extended periods of time had little interest for me. I didn't realize that the Brady Bunch was reruns until the third grade. It never clicked in my head that there were such a thing as reruns.

I was browsing yahoo news yesterday afternoon when I stumbled across this article. The article is italics, my commentary is not.

About 90 percent of U.S. children under age 2 and as many as 40 percent of infants under three months are regular watchers of television, DVDs and videos, researchers said on Monday. How is regular watcher of television defined? Does that include time trying to obtain the attention of their parents who happen to be watching television? Or does it mean that the children are purposely placed in front of the television? And what about the kids who are not watching TV?

They said the number of young kids watching TV is much greater than expected.
"We don't know from the study whether it is good or bad. What we know is that it is big," said Frederick Zimmerman of the University of Washington, whose research appears in the Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine. How do they not know if this is good or bad? Of course it is bad!! How can children develop an imagination if everything is provided for them? How do they learn survival skills or common sense? How do they learn how to interact with their peers in a healthy way? And what happens to the kids that aren't watching the same volume of TV?

A second study suggested excessive TV viewing can lead to attention and learning problems down the road. As someone who struggled for years with attention and learning problems despite not watching TV, I can't imagine doing something that would add to the struggle. If everything on TV wraps up in a nice, neat 30 minute package, won't these children be surprised when real life does not work out that way?

The American Academy of Pediatrics estimates that children in the United States watch about four hours of television every day. They recommend that children under age 2 should not watch any and older children should watch no more than 2 hours a day of quality programming. But 29 percent of parents surveyed by Zimmerman and colleagues believe baby-oriented TV and DVD programs offer educational benefits. I don't even watch four hours of TV a day!! I max out on about an hour of TV a day!! And nine times out of ten, I recorded it the night before so I could fast forward through the commercials when I watch it. I can't even imagine being able to watch two hours of television! Why are these kids watching four hours? And I seriously doubt as to the quality of the programing. I'm also perplexed on the educational benefits. Babies and small children learn from touch, from exploring, from interacting. They learn from experiences. Last time I checked, TV was not an experience.

"Parents are getting the message loud and clear from marketers of TV and videos that this is good for their kids. That it will help their brain development ... None of this stuff has ever been proven," Zimmerman said in a telephone interview. Well, clearly, these parents are not the swiftest horses in the race. Otherwise they may have waited until they were able to pay attention to their offspring before reproducing.

For their study, Zimmerman's team conducted random telephone surveys of more than 1,000 families with young children in Minnesota and Washington.

They found 90 percent of children under age 2 and 40 percent of infants under three months watched TV regularly. I can't even begin to wrap my mind around that statement.

At 3 months, children watched less than an hour per day, but by 24 months, they watched more than 1.5 hours per day. How is a child under three months of age watching TV? They can barely see a few feet in front of their faces! And what aren't the children at 24 months doing that they should be? Perhaps exercising? Napping? Playing? Something!

About half of the shows watched were in the educational category, with the remainder split evenly among noneducational children's content, baby DVDs/videos and adult TV. Adult TV? Is that like the Soprano's? Or is that more like the complete Girls Gone Wild DVD collection?

TV IN THE BEDROOM

In a separate survey of 1,051 parents published in the journal Pediatrics, 75 percent of children aged 0 to 6 were found to watch TV every day, often in their own bedrooms.
"We don't know that it is bad but we don't know that it is harmless," Zimmerman said. The first time I ever had a TV in my bedroom was in February. And after we got the television, we didn't have sex for a week. If a TV could have a negative impact on adults, wouldn't it also follow that the same TV would also have a negative impact on small, impressionable minds?

A second study in the Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine found that teens who watch three to four hours of television a day are more likely to have attention or learning problems and are less likely to get a college degree. Having gone to both an elite private liberal arts college and a local community college, I will whole heartedly agree with that statement.

"Even watching more than an hour of TV per day had some adverse consequences, but three hours was much worse than one hour, and two was worse than one," Jeffrey Johnson of Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons and the New York State Psychiatric Institute said in a telephone interview.

Johnson and colleagues studied 678 families in New York state over more than 20 years.
"Kids who watched less than one hour of TV per day were twice as likely to go to college as those who watched three or more hours per day," he said. Can anyone say that they are truly surprised by this statement?

Just 12 percent of the parents whose children watched less than an hour of television a day said their child "hardly ever does homework," compared to 21 percent of those who watched one to three hours a day and 27 percent of those who watched more than three hours a day. I always did homework. I wasn't allowed anywhere near a television until I did all of my homework. TV was a treat, not a priviledge.

Parents said 22 percent of teens who watched less than an hour a day were often bored at school, compared to 35 percent of the moderate watchers and 42 percent of those who watched three hours or more. I think they could have left this part out. I think most teens would say school is boring.

The result was the same regardless of socioeconomic status. I think most of us would like to think that if we make more money, our children will be better off and that our children will not face the same challenges in life as the "poor kids". Just a reminder that at the end of the day, none of it matters if your kid watches too much of the boob tube.

Johnson said he believes TV may be shortening teens' attention spans. "Over time, it could really dumb down society," he said. While I think it is wonderful this guy did this study, statements like that completely take away from all of his work. Of course it is going to dumb down society! It already has! If you need further proof, look at Paris Hilton and all of the attention is getting from what I used to consider legitimate news sources!