Imagine the scenario. You come downstairs some morning and the television is missing. Indeed, every TV in the house has disappeared. What will you do? How can your family survive without the daily diet of trash, gossip, violence, drama, controversy and smut?
The terrible reality begins to dawn on you that there will be nothing for your children to do for at least six hours every day. You feel like screaming and never being able to stop, like running out of the house and never returning again. Then you wake up from this nightmare in a cold sweat. Thank God it is only a bad dream.
It is extraordinary how dependent we have become on that box in the corner of the room. It dictates how we think, sets the standard for how we behave, depicts the extremes of society as if they were normal and obliterates any creative or alternative thinking.
People's lives are becoming more and more controlled by what is presented over the medium of TV. The comedy series called The Royle Family was as frightening as it was funny: it depicted an average working-class family sitting around a television discussing the most mundane topics. The peak of their intellectual conversations consisted of describing what they had for dinner the night before and berating the last person to break wind in the room! The routine was built around favourite TV programmes.
Most of the comic content emanates from viewers readily relating the show to what happens in their own house. From the ever-neglected Nana to the sticky tape holding the remote control together, most households could recognise themselves on screen. Hardly anything happens in the plot, and yet we could all identify with it. Could this programme be confronting us with the emptiness which pervades all our lives?
Perhaps that nightmare scenario described earlier should be considered a dream. Perhaps all parents should aspire to a household that does not depend on a television for stability. Of necessity, the child will find something else to do in the event that there is no TV in the house. There are thousands of alternatives to television. The challenge to parents and children should be to find those alternatives and replace the time wasted watching TV with structured activities.
There is no greater learning environment than children at play. Indeed, this also applies to adults. But play does not happen when there is a television dominating affairs from the corner. Taking the step of limiting or eliminating the television from your household would be difficult. I have no doubt that it would benefit your child enormously in the long term.
With the increasing domination of television, thinking has become more homogenous. There appears to be less room for individuality and self-expression. Perhaps this is why PR companies and spin doctors have become the new Hierarchy: they determine what we buy and how we look; they play on our insecurities and our desire for acceptance; they write the menu, set the price and serve up the junk food, no matter how poor the quality.
And there is another small screen that has invaded our households. If advertising executives are the new Hierarchy, then computers are the new Bible. It is a mechanical language, a prescribed code, an impersonal modality which is setting the standard for the foreseeable future. A child who cannot handle a computer will be as incapacitated as one who cannot read, if we are to believe the predictions.
However, with the computer age upon us, it apparent to all that as Ireland develops into a first-world nation with a booming economy, full employment and cutting-edge technology, we are also losing our identity.
For example, a walk down Grafton Street in Dublin today may as well be in any city in Europe. The shops are the same, the atmosphere is contrived, the prices are standardised across chains of stores. One fears that the same will happen to children, as the mould is being set by forces outside parental influence.
Technology is intruding more and more into family life. I would encourage parents to at the very least reduce the dependency on these intrusive devices which will retard the development of your child's true potential. Computer skills are a necessary attribute for children today, but not to the detriment of a rounded personality and a well developed system of values.
Families must continue to play, to talk, to understand and to appreciate each other. They must actively make time to do so without the intrusion of technology.
An acquaintance of mine from Hong Kong recently sent me these musings, which seem relevant:
We have bigger houses but smaller families
We are more efficient but have less patience
We spend more but enjoy it less
We are more networked but have less socialising
We have more conveniences but less time
More degrees but less common sense
More knowledge but less judgement
More medicine but less wellness
More experts but even more problems
Food for thought.
Dr Mark Harrold is a clinical psychologist.
