Cohousing-L Mailing List: RE: Cohousing and television

[Ruddick, T.R. (RUDDICK]

Discussions of the effects of various entertainment media often strike me as
overly general and lacking in hard evidence.

For example, I was surprised to learn the following bit of hard data:
children who watch an inordinate amount of TV almost always fall into two
groups based on academic achievement: students who underachieve, and
students who score in the top percentiles.

A heavy TV viewer might be an undersocialized, intellectually reticent
individual.  Or might be a person who is a bit obsessed with garnering
information, who finds TV to be an icon of popular culture suitable for
study, as well as a source of trivia, data, news, opinion, and
what-have-you.  The former is rejected by society, the latter is admired.

Our society awards obsession if its object is something widely seen as
desirable.  A workaholic, a single-minded mathematician, an absorbed
violinist, an all-day every-day basketball player--all of these are likely
to attain praise and financial reward for their "addictions".

Therefore, stereotyping heavy TV viewers is as prone to error as any other
stereotype.
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