Television - The Hidden Picture
By Rixon Stewart
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The old line
about British television being the best in the world is a debateable one.
What is beyond dispute though is the fact that Britons are a nation of TV
addicts and with the advent of cable and satellite TV that trend is likely to
continue. Whether or not that is a good thing is another matter entirely. For
its influence could literally be described as deadening, as a growing amount
of scientific evidence would seem to indicate. But don,t expect to hear that from the mainstream media,
particularly television; there is simply too much at stake here, politically
and economically, for what follows to become more widely known. According to
Daniel Reid, writing in the Tao of Health Sex and Longevity, the rays from a
TV flicker erratically, causing uneven and irregular stimulation of the
retina. "This choppy stimulus is transferred directly into the brain via
the optic nerve, which in turn irritates the hypothalamus. In scientific
experiments conducted in the Equally
significant was the fact that during the experiment the TV screens were kept
covered in thick black paper so that only the invisible rays came through.
Thus, the damage was done, not by the visible rays, but by the invisible
radiation. These findings
were echoed by Dr H.D. Youmans of the U.S. Bureau
of Radiological Health, quoted by Associated Press in 1970: "We found
rays escaping from the vacuum tubes to be harder and of higher average energy
than we expected. They penetrated the first few inches of the body as deeply
as 100-kilowatt diagnostic X-rays. You get a uniform dose to the eyes, testes
and bone marrow." The same year
Dr Robert Elder, director of the BRH, testified before Congress that even
very minute doses of radiation, which fall below the legal limit
cause damage and that the damage is cumulative. In fact the
evidence is beginning to mount to the point where it can no longer be
ignored, unless you happen to watch a lot of TV, in which case you may not
have noticed the results of a study by Sally Ward. One of Britain's leading
authorities on children's speech development, she completed a ten year study
which showed that the background noise in the average two year olds' day can
delay his or her acquisition of a language by up to a year. Almost
invariably, the background noise came from television. Amongst other things
she found that: * Children
learn to speak from their parents and parents don,t play or talk enough with their children when the
TV is on. * Background
noise from TV or radio, confuses infants. In response they learn to ignore
all noise and then they ignore speech. * Children of
two years or older should not be exposed to more than two hours of TV a day. * Children of
one year old or younger should not be exposed to television at all.. Sally Ward is
currently preparing to focus on television and the way it affects our
attention. In particular she will be looking at Attention Deficit and
Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). "A lot of people think it's
chemical," she says, but in her view . . . "it's very peculiar that
at the onset of children's television it got a lot more prevalent, and at the
onset of children's videos it became a lot more prevalent." Her concern is
being reiterated in Interestingly, Rosemond began questioning the role of TV after his own
son began displaying symptoms of ADHD. In response he got rid of his
television and within six weeks the boy's behaviour was transformed. Today,
he is a commercial airline pilot, a job which requires the most serious
concentration. Still, there
may well be a place for television in modern society: in our prisons. No,
seriously...at a time when its budget is being cut by over 15% you may ask
why Britons prisons service is spending an estimated £5 million on television
sets for a third of its inmates? Why? Well,
according to David Roddan, general secretary of the
prison governors association: "It's the best control mechanism
you can think of." Extracts from
The Tao of Health, Sex and Longevity, Simon & Schuster and GET A LIFE!
David Burke and Jean Lotus ( |
