The below write-up is a part of a short story I wrote, called "Television and Conditioning". It is a story of a man who discovers how heavily his brain has been conditioned due to heavy TV watching and how much of his ideas, outlook, and behavioral patterns have been shaped by TV. It also goes on to talk about how the world of TV in a very serious way replaces the perception of actuality.
One day, he read an article in the newspaper by a psychologist who was visiting the country from the U.S. This psychologist was renowned in the field of neuropsychology and cognitive psychology. The article mentioned the effects of television on the human mind. It ran like this:
Have you ever watched yourself watching television? What happens? There are two things one can do - directly perceive the images and the sounds first and thereby approach the television from oneself; and watch the content and thereby approach yourself from the television. Most of us approach the television from the latter angle and thus get completely lost in it - we let the television invade our minds, without first perceiving the kinds of images that are being shown. If one approaches the form before the content, one will simply find most of the images and sounds shown on the television to be repulsive and offensive to the senses. It is because we do not directly see, because we do not understand this first impression, that we get lost in the content and then the good and bad in the TV depends on our conclusions, ideas and likes or dislikes.
Television as it exists now is nothing but a marketing tool for making money by offending one’s senses by displaying all kinds of rubbish images and by invading the feeble and impressionable human mind. One might’ve experienced a certain heaviness in the brain during or after watching television for a short duration of time. Many times, the residue of the images and sounds displayed remains in the brain. It is because we think it is harmless and let it work on us that more and more new ways of using it to deteriorate the mind are being invented. A mind that is in a habit of watching television regularly, is exposed to it for many years, has more or less lost some of its natural faculties. Moreover, it must also affect the brain cells, perhaps damaging some and killing some. This is only the direct effect of television, not to forget the image making process that starts in the mind - the mind becomes occupied with images and ideas rather than with facts. This is a serious threat facing humankind, especially young brains.
One watches television, listens to music, reads, plays video games, etc., because the mind has simply become addicted to these artificial stimulations, to be kept occupied with some thing or the other all the time. It seriously alters the mind’s capacity to be free of illusions and to see things as they are. It fills the mind with all kinds of unnecessary images and sounds - one can see this for oneself when all kinds of thoughts and sounds just pop up in one’s head. This makes the mind mechanical, insensitive and incapable of direct perception of things. It also affects one’s physical vision, fatigues the mind and makes one lazy.
Now, it is a crisis situation since the people who make the media their profession become engaged in wielding its power shamelessly. One can see this in the programs that are aired on television; most of them are far away from the basic logic of things. This shows how ignorant and stupid these people are who are not only living their lives amidst all this but are also imposing the same on almost everybody. Their minds have already deteriorated and they project their deterioration and senselessness onto the masses, who are impressionable and after a time start believing in the senseless as the real in a most natural way. This has been the lot of mankind for the last 20 years or so. However, the speed at which this is occurring is increasing, and the younger generation which is exposed to it shall have to bear the brunt of it. The whole human consciousness is now so filled with content of all kinds that it has become ever more difficult for people to be free of all this accumulation and live a sane and healthy life.
Sam Warren read the article and felt quite alarmed. He had never approached the matter from this angle. He thought this might just be the author’s point of view. But what if it was a fact? What if it was one of the reasons for what was happening to him? He grew more confused as he pondered upon it.
He had been an avid TV watcher since his childhood. Television had been his companion, consolation and diversion. He had never thought about this point. Now that he started to think along these lines, he found that much of what he had learned, known, and felt came from television. He remembered nostalgically how watching TV in the old days had transported him into some magical world, or in another kind of world, of which he was a part as well as spectator. These worlds had been changing but they always gave him great pleasure.
He had learned about the emotions - the wide range of them - by seeing people on screen using them. He had known how to smile, how to laugh, how to cry by watching various characters cry, smile, and laugh. He had known and learned how to walk, how to talk, how to think of life and almost every other thing through television. He had learned about many places, about great men, about great deeds, through television. He had taken part in all of them, lived them, suffered with them, enjoyed with them, through television.
His language, his action, his beliefs, his ideas, his range of knowledge and information were all through television. He remembered how in many cases when he did not know what to do or how to react he would recall how some of his favorite characters would react and he would do it exactly the same way. He also recalled how lately he could not even find solace in TV. He recalled how he could not even enjoy watching TV as he used to earlier. He kept on pondering on all of this and reflected on how much of his personality was shaped by TV.
He found out about the psychologist who had written the article and decided to visit him.
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The above extract has been taken from the short story, "Television and Conditioning" , featured in the book - To Think or Not to Think and Other Stories, by Ashutosh Ghildiyal
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