It's horrible for your brain. Even beyond the damaging programming, the simple technology is bad for you. I say this not for the purpose of sounding elitist, but it's SO DARN OBVIOUS to me. Every now and again when I head to the lobby of a hotel for breakfast there is a TV there tuned into CNN. Generally I try to get my breakfast and head out of the room and away from the hideous 16k tone that every TV emits, but sometimes I'm in the room long enought o catch a decent portion of the material. I don't know if you've noticed, but the programming on CNN station is complete fluff and a pacifier. For that matter the programing on every station is nothing but fragmented, useless/harmful dribble. "But it's the news!" you say. Very little of what you have ever seen under the guise of news was actually news. What you'll see on the "news" is a couple "breaking" stories about an airplane hangar in akron ohio which might be catching fire because of an electrical fire (No bearing on your life whatsoever.) or the fact that a highway in the middle of texas is increasing their speed limit by five miles an hour. ...oh but that's not it. They'll tell you reasons that you should possibly be angry about the speed limit going up by 5 miles an hour. Of course they will be happy to host complaints e-mailed by a mom in Indiana or illinois who has never been to texas or driven the 13 hours of NOTHING between El Paso and Austin. But what I've just described is the best of it. The rest of the "news" is simply scare tactics which make you feel like you need the news to keep you safe. "is your toothpaste killing you? More after these comercials." Think about all the times you've seen the ad for the news which says, "The news you need, from the team you can trust". Ok, let's pass the "news you need" part on the basis of it's extreme obsurdity and move onto the phrase "the team you trust". Let's see, why wouldn't we trust the Team? What does that phrase even mean? It's not like there's a little lie demon running about ruining unprofessional news broadcasts everywhere. What is it they have to fight to bring you news deserving of your trust? Oh yeah, they have to fight THEMSELVES and their own desire to sensationalize the news and exploit and capitalize on people's tendency towards the new, bizzare, sadistic, threatening, or mellodramatic. The "human interest" segments, or "how to" peices. Just once take a hard critical look at what they're actually saying and you'll get what I'm talking about. It's bloody rediculous.Unfortunately, news is the least of programming evils. If you can get over the 16k tone that's harrassing your brain and the damage TV is doing to your eyes, on top of the passive habits it's instilling in your brain, you still have to deal with fragmented material. Any story you're watching which is broken up every 7 minutes by commercials is teaching your brain how to and not to take in information. In this case, your attention span is under direct attack. Do you have trouble sitting in your room and reading a book for 6 or 7 hours straight? You shouldn't. You should be able to concentrate of whatever you want for as long as you want. Afterall, it's your mind. Does your mind have a mind of it's own? Who taught it that? What outside source taught your brain habits that you don't like? TV.
