Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Cohousing and Televison: a Classic Clash of Values

[Michael D (ohanamd]

> The point of the book was that the choice of television as
an
> option to people greatly reduced people's attendance at
> community meetings and other communal social activities,
> such as PTA, church, recreational clubs, political parties,
or
> bowling leagues.

And the point of what I've been saying is that the choice to
be heavily involved in anything (not just TV) leads to people
greatly reducing their involvement in other things.  It isn't
a problem with TV.  It's a problem with choice-making (or
dependence).

I have a friend who's divorcing her husband in part because he
got involved in a church and now spends 5 days a week there -
thus reducing his involvement in lots of other things.  I've
seen the same thing happen with quite a few other people, too.
Do we conclude that the problem is with religion?  If everyone
who went to church (or even everyone who went to this
particular church) started attending 5 days a week and not
doing other things, then we might be able to make a case that
religion or the church is the problem.  But that isn't true.

Another friend complains because her boyfriend spends so much
time working on cars.  I've heard that lots of women have that
same complaint.  Apparently the guys don't do a lot of the
things they used to do.  Shall we blame cars?  Not everyone
gets so involved with cars that they stop other activities.
So, cars aren't the problem.

Not everyone who watches TV gets so involved that they stop
doing other things.  Therefore, it isn't TV that's the
problem.

Besides, I'd bet that they haven't controlled for other
variables in their research.  Watching TV more could be the
response rather than the stimulus.  In other words, people who
want to withdraw from the world (for example, because of
depression or needing a break) may fill in their time with TV
watching.

I believe that there's research that suggests that some people
who are unhappy with their marriages (thus wanting to get away
from their partners) watch more TV.  TV didn't cause the
marital problems, the marital problems resulted in the choice
to watch more TV.

I often wonder how many of the people who are drawing
conclusions from research have ever taken courses in
statistics, research design, and research evaluation.  I know
for certain that the media often draw unwarranted conclusions
from research results.  For example, if the result is that 64%
of people who juggle also play backgammon, it's unwarranted to
conclude that juggling causes backgammon playing, and possibly
even to conclude that juggling influences backgammon playing
(depending on the research design).  Yet you'll see people
making that kind of conclusion a lot.  Correlation doesn't
imply causation (or even influence).  (Ah, I feel like I'm
back in graduate school.)

Namaste,
Michael

http://www.delphi.com/thisismylife/messages
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HeartSongCommunity
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HeartSongSchedule
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/TheHeartoftheMatter
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/QuotationsforConsciousLiving
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/AQuestionofIntimacy
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/PrayersfromtheHeart

_______________________________________________
Cohousing-L mailing list
Cohousing-L [at] cohousing.org  Unsubscribe  and other info:
http://www.communityforum.net/mailman/listinfo/cohousing-l