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0 pointsACow_Adonis5y ago0 comments

Well, what happened to those kids? The kids grew up and now spend the majority of their time working in advertising, supplying games, creating endless streams of new media, etc.

how has it NOT been harmful?

I'm more inclined to believe my parents did the right thing by limiting TV time and commenting that most of it was rubbish. And I presume like many parents in Silicon Valley, I'm going to fight tooth and nail to keep advertising and most of this stuff from my kids.

The funny thing is, if you're not brought up around it, if you learn some math and statistics, and then you suddenly go somewhere exposure is considered normal, you almost have a physical or psychological revulsion to it.

Ads become frustrating and unacceptable intrusions. casino floors are sad, boring, pathetic and dystopian. mobile games look like drugs foistered upon an underclass, etc.

At least with big TV at the time, programming was so limited (at least in my country), you had maybe 2 to 3 hours per week of anything that would fit a genre worth watching. But even with that restriction, I know a large number of people who deem that the TV should be on even if there's "nothing to watch". I just can't write that sort of behaviour off as not being dysfunctional, it's just that we've culturally got a general acceptance of very specific types of dysfunction...

And what about rates of obesity? I'm not saying TV is solely to blame, but are we going to pretend that screen time and such programming (on demand or otherwise) is a blameless part of our culture?

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bscphil5y ago

Well said. Whenever I have to turn on the TV (which actually requires plugging in the cable box, because I simply don't use it, and also because it's crappily designed and causes buzzing in my speakers when plugged in), I'm always shocked by how blatantly ideological the advertising is.

Upthread there's a comment on how someone's kid is being made fun of for not purchasing custom skins to use in Fortnight, and I almost commented something about how to me, there's always something been something weirdly uncomfortable about people who choose to spend money on arbitrarily customizing something. I'm glad I didn't, because thinking about it, I am the weird one. Most people are quite happy to "waste" time and money in this way. I'm not one of the kids (or adults) who grew up like this their whole life.

Lest this comment come across as me saying I'm the one sane person in a crazy world, I should add that I'm certainly affected by this when it comes to the Internet. Although I haven't seen more than an ad or two in years (thanks ad blockers), I'm still affected by the addiction-promotion used by websites to keep you there so you (theoretically) see those ads. I caught myself spending hours a day scrolling through Twitter. I'm trying to kick the habit, but it is a habit. Maybe I'm just in a better position to recognize it because I see the damage too much TV did to others.

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