To a world largely addicted to the popular newspapers and periodicals of the time, radio was a fascinating innovation. Before WWII, families would gather around the radio to listen to their favorite broadcasts. In 1938, on the night before Halloween, at 8:00 PM CST, Orson Welles forever changed the future of news broadcasting when he aired his radio adaptation of H. G. Wells "War of the Worlds." It was so skillfully presented as 'breaking news' that a million people believed the world was actually coming to an end.

 

 

It was further noted that brain activity switches from the left-logical hemisphere of the brain, where critical analysis takes place, to the right emotionally-responsive hemisphere of the brain and, with this shift, that endorphins, the natural addictive opiates of the human body, are released.

 

A fourth phenomenon, aside from the beta to alpha shift in brain waves, the shift from left-brain to right-brain activity and the corresponding endorphin surge, has to do with our neo-cortex and with the limbic system (responsible for our "fight or flight" response and for the seat of our emotions). While watching television, activity of the limbic system increases proportionate to the decrease in activity within the neo-cortex.

 

To understand this shift better, I did a little research on the neo-cortex and found that it is the memory system for pattern recall. It gathers information to build a worldview, a context in which to fit and evaluate future information. It then helps us to predict future events by analogy to past events, recording our sensory input and reporting patterned expectations, resulting in behavior. Therefore, TV displaces or impairs the hierarchical memory of the brain, thereby interrupting pattern recognition and prediction.

 

 

Because the neo-cortex wants to see contextually coherent shapes, where no clearly invariable contextual relationship exists, the neo-cortex fills in the blanks. This is where we get the power of suggestion in advertising. If the context is specific and relative to an object or an event, it stimulates or reinforces thought or action. If the context is general, we adjust our interpretation of the object or the event to fit the context in which it is presented. In this way, the neo-cortex interprets context to add meaning to an object or an event. One can change the significance of an object or an event by changing the context in which it is presented. As this new interpretation of sensory information is adopted locally, it is also integrated globally within one's brain to adjust one's worldview.

 

Though an object changes its position (spatial status) its form remains the same and gives us an invariable context for understanding and relating to it. Though an event, like a football match, may change its relative venue (spatial or temporal status) its history gives us a context for understanding and relating to it and for understanding the past and predicting the future. Wherever history is rewritten we lose this ability. It is the immutability of objects and events (history) that enable us to construct reliable worldviews.

 

Information overload occurs when the volume of information flow superimposes separate pieces of information such that they cannot be readily delineated or individually evaluated. It is then that an assumption is made based on the composite of information. This composite assumption may resemble both sets of information but may be identifiably unique from either. The dis-integration of superimposed objects or events affords the perceiver a quicker, more objective view for identifying and evaluating these objects or events. But this dis-integration cannot occur wherever distractions prevent us from focusing on the edge-patterns of related objects or events.

 

Associations are possible only where patterns are tractable (easily managed). Where patterns are dis-tractable, vital associations are often neglected. Thus, on every level, distractions war against vital relationships. A pattern, or the lack of a pattern (a surprise), will make an object or an event salient. Wherever the ability to discern a pattern is diminished so is the significance of a particular relative object or event.

 

The neo-cortex both evaluates the context and regulates the attention that must be given to objects or events within that context. It enables us to embrace or discard information in order to make coherent and benevolent decisions. It maps object or event-probability and allows us to focus our attention on the most salient events or objects. It catalogs the hierarchy of the objects or events that form our worldview and prompts us to respond proportionately. It identifies an object or an event and attempts to define contextual associations and it also identifies a context and attempts to define the associated objects or events that belong in it. In short, it gives us discernment. Whether intentionally or unintentionally, benevolently or malevolently, this is what TV can do, it robs us of discernment.

 

Now, so that you don't think that I am a complete weirdo (or, if you like, so that you have the opportunity to accuse me of hypocrisy), let me explain that I work for a Christian TV company and that I have been associated, on an off, with TV for about twenty years. So I am not advocating for cold-turkey TV withdrawal. Rather, I am advocating for selective, restrained, and intentional viewing.

 

I know what TV can do and how it does it. I remember a shaving commercial I once worked on where a sleek phallic obelisk appeared in the midst of two cavemen. Lit with an otherworldly light the message was clear, "Sophisticated, enlightened, and sexually virile men prefer our products." We used to put glycerin on fresh fruits and vegetables to make them look juicier and fresher and would follow the three-second rule for cutting away to new images or camera angles so as not to lose a viewer's visual interest. TV advertising is big business and it only takes 30 seconds of distracting images to get your full and unconscious attention.

 

What I am saying is that we are better off being a participant than a spectator. Whether on the football field or in the stadium, whether in front of a TV or a radio, we are all subject to the spectator apathy and complacency that restricts our responses to emotional and primal reactions. That is the power of propaganda that Hitler and the father of public relations (Edward Bernays) discovered. And unless we reverse this trend, we will once again become slaves of deception, subject to the propaganda and PR masters of our day.

 

The TV is only a tool to be used as necessary. If I went to bed with my hammer, cooked with my hammer in the kitchen, always had a hammer prominently displayed in my home or office, spent eight hours a day (especially on my days off) with my hammer, and if you could see into my hammer-ridden world, you would begin to think that something was seriously wrong with me. Well a TV is no different from a hammer. It is a tool to convey information. There is a time to use it and a time to lay it down. And when it becomes unreliable, dangerous to you and to those around you, its better not to have it at all.

 

So, how do we respond to this threat? Through action! Experiences give our brains hooks to hang relevant information on. Information only becomes genuine revelation through corresponding action. Until then it is mere vanity and speculation. Instead of watching a gardening show, plant a garden. Instead of watching a home improvement show, build a house. Instead of watching sports, become an athlete. Instead of listening to music, write a song. Instead of watching politicians and lawmakers shape our country, become a man or woman that shapes our country through politics and law. Instead of watching a fishing program, go fishing. No amount of watching TV can ever solve the world's problems. Problem solving requires action.