Television and Control

Control

"We've all been raised on television to believe that one day we'd be millionaires, movie gods, and rock stars. But we won't. We're slowly learning that fact. And we're very, very pissed off."- (Tyler)

We are a generation babysat by the television and raised by sitcoms. The remote, we are taught at a young age will perform the magic ability of changing the channel and we can hardly imagine a world in which we have to physically get up and have to manually operate the television. While flipping through the channels we are constantly bombarded with ads that tell us everything, from what we should wear to what we should eat. When we go to the store the ads persuade us subconsciously to buy the product we see over another "inferior" product. Kids, at a very young age, are exposed to an extreme amount of material on television. Kids see life fitting neatly into an hour block and expect the same out of life. When this does not happen kids get bored and distracted. This behavior may lead to what doctors call ADHD or Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder (Howard and Peiper).

We watch television because it gives us something the world cannot give us: control. When we turn on the television we can be anything we want: a rich lawyer, a cop, a doctor. All these lives are fast paced and never have a dull moment. As a society we have denied ourselves our aggressive instincts, though in some small way watching television allows us release the primal instincts that we have been denied. We are losing control over our own lives because of all the flashy ads and fancy lifestyles we are exposed to when we watch television and we do not even realize it.

The remote was invented in 1957 by the Zenith Company ("Five Decades"), and we have been using it ever sense. Zenith Company said "that some day the remote will come to control every device in the home (Zenith Online)." The ability to control everything in the house is not a bad thing; however, how much control does a person have when he watches television? He can sit there for hours and watch television, not having to get up, having the remote do all the work for him. He has the ability to go from channel to channel but he still does not have any control over what he watches. All of the programming on television is the same; it is geared to get someone to buy a product. The shows are merely traps to get people to watch television, and they work. For the most part, we are not aware of how the television affects us. We have this device that gives us control over a box, but we go from channel to channel only to see more ads. So in a sense, we do not have any control over what we watch. We watch what the corporations want us to watch.

What the corporations and companies want us to watch are the ads. They really do not care about the television shows; all they want are people to see the advertising. However, the television shows are what draw people to the box in the first place. Corporations see that the better the show, the more people that watch television, and the more people that will see the ads. It is in the interest of the corporations to make television as interesting as possible so that when we go to the store we buy exactly what they want us to buy.

Everyone in modern America will have to go to the store. When we go to the store it is generally to shop for some item or items that we see we need for survival. However, we do not have the control we think we have over our purchasing decisions. Ads and product placement on television affect these decisions making it almost impossible to make a decision on one's own. Many European nations, such as Austria, Germany, Norway and the United Kingdom, ban or sharply restrict product placement on television because of the overwhelming influence it has on the viewer (Law and braun-LaTour 63). Most people are not even aware that they are being affected this way. The whole purpose of television ads are not to persuade the viewer to go out and buy the product immediately, but to get that image of the product burned into the viewer's head. When it comes time for someone to decide on what brand of ketchup to buy, the image will all ready be there, and without the shopper even knowing it, they will buy the brand they viewed on television.

This subconscious state that a person goes into when choosing which ketchup to buy is similar to the coma like state the brain enters when watching television. Thomas Mulholland is a psycho-physiologist "whose research showed that only thirty seconds of watching television causes the human brain to produce alpha waves, which are associated with inert, almost comatose states of being (Wyer, and Reshmi 137). Mulholland's research implies that watching television is neurologically analogous to staring at a blank wall. In this state a person is easily influenced by ads. Corporations do not want their viewers to have to do anything but buy their product, so they want the viewers to believe that their product is the answer to all of their problems and that if they buy the product everything will be better.

Take for example the Nike shoe commercials. The television ad starts showing a strong athletic man or woman at the starting line with competitors on either side. The crowd has reached a fevered pitch, the sun is high, and then BAM they are off. The man with the Nike shoes is falling behind, but then catches up for the win. The viewer sees this shoe as an image of success. Society is competitive, so the image of success goes a long way. The next time the viewer goes to buy a pair of shoes, they have a better chance of noticing the shoe up on the rack and associate success with that shoe, even if they do not remember the television ad. This gives that shoe a huge edge over the other shoes on the rack.

All of these flashy ads on and television are not good for a developing child. Kids, at a very young age are exposed to an extreme amount of material on television. Dr. Dimitri A. Christakis, lead researcher and director of the Child Health Institute at Children's Hospital and Regional Medical Center, says, "TV watching "rewires" an infant's brain, the damage shows up at age seven when children have difficulty paying attention in school." (Anderson, and Peiper) Kids see TV life fitting neatly into an hour block and may expect