Did Television Cultivate Information Overload?

By on February 8, 2007 in Blogging with 11 Comments

I just had a great discussion with a friend conducting a study ignited by some of George Gerbner’s theories.

Though I used to watch much more television as a youth than I do now (I’m at about 20-30 minutes a day – and in small chunks at that), I recognize how TV, especially dramatic TV has changed.

Bonanza. Perry Mason. Mission:Impossible. Each normally had one story per show. There was an end to the story at the end of the show.

Then we found multiple story lines in Fantasy Island and The Love Boat. More stories and characters, but once again – an end to close out the show. Even M*A*S*H would have multiple characters and stories, but usually these stories were tied up at the close.

Was it Hill Street Blues that started the trend of multiple stories and characters – often continuing for weeks? Now we have LOST, which is one (eight?) puzzle piece after another.

Speaking of puzzles, notice the fascination we have with the CSI’s and Criminal Minds. Have the MVPs in our lives become Multiple Visual Puzzles (like 2000 bloggers perhaps?).

There’s more here than meets the eye…(to be continued next week)

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  • Jane Greer

    Great post. I think tv is like any other addiction: after a while, enough isn’t enough. You start to need more hours of it, and more intensity (of one sort or another) packed into those hours. And pretty soon you start to live in TVland. I think a large proportion of us live in TVland and never come out, not even when we’re making business decisions or raising children or voting.

  • http://www.converstations.com Mike Sansone

    Jane – I agree. I know a few folks hooked on TV to the point where it must be on even if they aren’t watching it – almost like a companion. Mmm-mm, it’s scary to thik what it will be like in the future – multiple full-screen shows going on at once?

  • http://healthywebdesign.com Dawud Miracle

    There are actually studies that show how sitting in front of a CRT – regardless of content – changed the brain wave patterns into a state of light sleep. I don’t remember the threshold for when that begins – but I think it was 10-15 minutes.
    I don’t feel anything is inherently bad. I’m for (almost) everything in moderation. TV in moderation is fine. But I do question today’s content.

  • Jane Greer

    Dawud re content: Especially the children in questionable situations? I’m thinking of the little boy in “Two and a Half Men,” and the two little girls I saw last night on “My Name is Earl” slurring each other in a very grown-up way. I also recently read where, on the set of the marvelous movie, “Little Miss Sunshine,” the young lead was “sort of” protected when Alan Arkin was spewing his obscenities. All of these shows are funny. I’ve watched them all. But these are children, for crying out loud. It’s easy to forget that. They’re going to grow up into adults who remember that when they were children, they got paid to perform in questionable situations. What will that mean? And more to Mike Sansone’s point, when I watch these shows and laugh, I’ve transferred my citizenship to TVland.

  • http://www.growthcapitalism.com Hannah Steen

    I almost think it’s because people now have such short attention spans, and too many things going on…that we have to do something that makes you “need” to watch/read/participate the next time. We’re stricly on a “have to” basis at this point, instead of considering it a luxury like it used to be.

  • http://blogandpingtutorial.blogspot.com/ Divya Uttam

    I was a regular viewer of those daily TV Soaps till I started blogging. To tell you the truth nothing is more addictive than it. After all Internet is surely where user generated content has created Information Overload.

  • Jane Greer

    A columnist in today’s Bismarck Tribune had an article right in line with this discussion. (Clay Jenkinson is the famed impersonator of Thomas Jefferson on public radio’s “The Thomas Jefferson Hour.”) Jenkinson and his friends agree that “to save America…there would have to be an end to television.” He admits to watching television only when he is “too tired to read, but not tired enough to sleep.”
    He goes on to say, however, that as he idly clicks through the channels he has found some amazing stuff on TV, and ends by saying, “for all of the mind-numbing, soul-destroying schlock on TV, there also are things of great value, that get at the core of our moment in history, global and local, grave and not so grave, and…our lives would be diminished without such moments.”
    Read the article at http://www.bismarcktribune.com/articles/2007/02/11/news/columnists/jenkinson/128618.txt

  • http://www.converstations.com Mike Sansone

    >Hi Dawud – Good points all around. Jane’s comment below (with the article from Bismark Trib) echoes much of what you’re saying I think.
    >Hi Hannah – It’s the McNews generation we live in – and now we’re addicted. I remember some folks hated the scroll bars at the bottom of the screen during the news. Now they scream if it comes down.
    >Hi Divya – Here’s a thought: Did all the info intake from mainstream media habits (TV, Newspaper, Web Sites) quicken and necessitate our need to have a channel for output? I wonder when the mutli-task, multi-voice, multi-story really started to take off.
    >Hiya Jane – Great addition!

  • http://healthywebdesign.com Dawud Miracle

    Jane, Here’s the interesting thing – espeically being a parent of two under the age of three – the American Academy of Pediatrics released a major study two years ago about kids and TV. Now I know this will be hard to swallow for a lot of parent, but they recommend that no child under the age of three years old watch any TV whatsoever. They found conclusive evidence that TV for such young children is detrimental.
    I know as a parent it’s hard not to throw your kids in front of the TV so you can get thing done. And, knowing that TV may stunt your children’s development is also something to be aware of.
    Just a closing point…this isn’t some new-age, crack-job group making this recommendation. It’s the America Academy of Pediatrics – basically the Baby/Child doctors union.

  • John Windschitl

    Wow. For a change, I agree with all the opinions above. And I make my living producing videos. T.V., like everything else (including blogging), is best in small doses.

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