Television Addiction - Occidental...

PH

OTO

CR

ED

IT H

ER

E

Perhaps the most ironic aspect of the struggle for survival is

how easily organisms can be harmed by that which they desire.

The trout is caught by the fisherman’s lure, the mouse by cheese.

But at least those creatures have the excuse that bait and cheese

look like sustenance. Humans seldom have that consolation. The

temptations that can disrupt their lives are often pure indulgences.

No one has to drink alcohol, for example. Realizing when a diver-

sion has gotten out of control is one of the great challenges of life.

By Robert Kubey and Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

Photoillustrations by Chip Simons

Television Addiction

is no mere metaphor

74 S C I E N T I F I C A M E R I C A N F E B R U A R Y 2 0 0 2

Copyright 2002 Scientific American, Inc.Copyright 2002 Scientific American, Inc.

Excessive cravings do not necessarilyinvolve physical substances. Gamblingcan become compulsive; sex can becomeobsessive. One activity, however, standsout for its prominence and ubiquity—

the world’s most popular leisure pastime,television. Most people admit to havinga love-hate relationship with it. Theycomplain about the “boob tube” and“couch potatoes,” then they settle intotheir sofas and grab the remote control.Parents commonly fret about their chil-dren’s viewing (if not their own). Evenresearchers who study TV for a livingmarvel at the medium’s hold on thempersonally. Percy Tannenbaum of theUniversity of California at Berkeley haswritten: “Among life’s more embarrass-ing moments have been countless occa-sions when I am engaged in conversa-tion in a room while a TV set is on, andI cannot for the life of me stop from pe-riodically glancing over to the screen.This occurs not only during dull conver-sations but during reasonably interest-ing ones just as well.”

Scientists have been studying the ef-fects of television for decades, generallyfocusing on whether watching violenceon TV correlates with being violent inreal life [see “The Effects of ObservingViolence,” by Leonard Berkowitz; Sci-entific American, February 1964;and “Communication and Social Envi-ronment,” by George Gerbner; Septem-ber 1972]. Less attention has been paidto the basic allure of the small screen—

the medium, as opposed to the message. The term “TV addiction” is impre-

cise and laden with value judgments, butit captures the essence of a very real phe-nomenon. Psychologists and psychiatristsformally define substance dependence asa disorder characterized by criteria thatinclude spending a great deal of time us-

ing the substance; using it more oftenthan one intends; thinking about reduc-ing use or making repeated unsuccessfulefforts to reduce use; giving up impor-tant social, family or occupational activ-ities to use it; and reporting withdrawalsymptoms when one stops using it.

All these criteria can apply to peoplewho watch a lot of television. That doesnot mean that watching television, perse, is problematic. Television can teachand amuse; it can reach aesthetic heights;

it can provide much needed distractionand escape. The difficulty arises whenpeople strongly sense that they oughtnot to watch as much as they do and yetfind themselves strangely unable to re-duce their viewing. Some knowledge ofhow the medium exerts its pull mayhelp heavy viewers gain better controlover their lives.

A Body at Rest Tends to Stay at RestTHE AMOUNT of time people spendwatching television is astonishing. Onaverage, individuals in the industrial-ized world devote three hours a day tothe pursuit—fully half of their leisuretime, and more than on any single ac-tivity save work and sleep. At this rate,someone who lives to 75 would spendnine years in front of the tube. To somecommentators, this devotion meanssimply that people enjoy TV and makea conscious decision to watch it. But ifthat is the whole story, why do so manypeople experience misgivings abouthow much they view? In Gallup polls in1992 and 1999, two out of five adult re-

spondents and seven out of 10 teenagerssaid they spent too much time watchingTV. Other surveys have consistentlyshown that roughly 10 percent of adultscall themselves TV addicts.

To study people’s reactions to TV,researchers have undertaken laboratoryexperiments in which they have moni-tored the brain waves (using an elec-troencephalograph, or EEG), skin resis-tance or heart rate of people watchingtelevision. To track behavior and emo-

tion in the normal course of life, as op-posed to the artificial conditions of thelab, we have used the Experience Sam-pling Method (ESM). Participants car-ried a beeper, and we signaled them sixto eight times a day, at random, overthe period of a week; whenever theyheard the beep, they wrote down whatthey were doing and how they werefeeling using a standardized scorecard.

As one might expect, people whowere watching TV when we beepedthem reported feeling relaxed and pas-sive. The EEG studies similarly showless mental stimulation, as measured byalpha brain-wave production, duringviewing than during reading.

What is more surprising is that thesense of relaxation ends when the set isturned off, but the feelings of passivityand lowered alertness continue. Surveyparticipants commonly reflect that tele-vision has somehow absorbed or suckedout their energy, leaving them depleted.They say they have more difficulty con-centrating after viewing than before. Incontrast, they rarely indicate such diffi-culty after reading. After playing sportsor engaging in hobbies, people reportimprovements in mood. After watchingTV, people’s moods are about the sameor worse than before.

Within moments of sitting or lyingdown and pushing the “power” button,viewers report feeling more relaxed. Be-cause the relaxation occurs quickly,people are conditioned to associate view-ing with rest and lack of tension. The as-


ROBERT KUBEY and MIHALY CSIKSZENTMIHALYI met in the mid-1970s at the University ofChicago, where Kubey began his doctoral studies and where Csikszentmihalyi served onthe faculty. Kubey is now a professor at Rutgers University and director of the Center forMedia Studies (www.mediastudies.rutgers.edu). His work focuses on the development ofmedia education around the world. He has been known to watch television and even to playvideo games with his sons, Ben and Daniel. Csikszentmihalyi is the C. S. and D. J. DavidsonProfessor of Psychology at Claremont Graduate University. He is a fellow of the AmericanAcademy of Arts and Sciences. He spends summers writing in the Bitterroot Mountains ofMontana, without newspapers or TV, hiking with grandchildren and other occasional visitors.

THE

AU

THO

RS

Most of the criteria of substance dependence canapply to people who watch a lot of TV.

Copyright 2002 Scientific American, Inc.

sociation is positively reinforced becauseviewers remain relaxed throughout view-ing, and it is negatively reinforced viathe stress and dysphoric rumination thatoccurs once the screen goes blank again.

Habit-forming drugs work in similarways. A tranquilizer that leaves the bodyrapidly is much more likely to cause de-pendence than one that leaves the body

slowly, precisely because the user is moreaware that the drug’s effects are wearingoff. Similarly, viewers’ vague learnedsense that they will feel less relaxed ifthey stop viewing may be a significantfactor in not turning the set off. Viewingbegets more viewing.

Thus, the irony of TV: people watcha great deal longer than they plan to,

even though prolonged viewing is less re-warding. In our ESM studies the longerpeople sat in front of the set, the less sat-isfaction they said they derived from it.When signaled, heavy viewers (thosewho consistently watch more than fourhours a day) tended to report on theirESM sheets that they enjoy TV less thanlight viewers did (less than two hours aday). For some, a twinge of unease orguilt that they aren’t doing somethingmore productive may also accompanyand depreciate the enjoyment of pro-longed viewing. Researchers in Japan,the U.K. and the U.S. have found thatthis guilt occurs much more amongmiddle-class viewers than among less af-fluent ones.

Grabbing Your AttentionWHAT IS IT about TV that has such ahold on us? In part, the attraction seemsto spring from our biological “orientingresponse.” First described by Ivan Pav-lov in 1927, the orienting response isour instinctive visual or auditory reac-tion to any sudden or novel stimulus. Itis part of our evolutionary heritage, abuilt-in sensitivity to movement and po-tential predatory threats. Typical orient-ing reactions include dilation of theblood vessels to the brain, slowing ofthe heart, and constriction of blood ves-sels to major muscle groups. Alphawaves are blocked for a few seconds be-fore returning to their baseline level,which is determined by the general levelof mental arousal. The brain focuses itsattention on gathering more informa-tion while the rest of the body quiets.

In 1986 Byron Reeves of StanfordUniversity, Esther Thorson of the Uni-versity of Missouri and their colleaguesbegan to study whether the simple for-mal features of television—cuts, edits,zooms, pans, sudden noises—activatethe orienting response, thereby keepingattention on the screen. By watchinghow brain waves were affected by for-mal features, the researchers concludedthat these stylistic tricks can indeed trig-ger involuntary responses and “derivetheir attentional value through the evo-lutionary significance of detectingmovement. . . . It is the form, not the

w w w . s c i a m . c o m S C I E N T I F I C A M E R I C A N 77

KICKING THE HABITIndividuals or families that want to achieve better control of their TV viewing can try the following strategies:

RAISING AWARENESS. As with other dependencies, a first critical step is to becomeaware of how entrenched the viewing habit has become, how much time it absorbs andhow limited the rewards of viewing actually are. One way to do this is to keep a diaryfor a few days of all programs viewed. The diary entries might rate the quality of theexperience, denoting how much the viewer enjoyed or learned from various programs.PROMOTING ALTERNATIVE ACTIVITIES. As soon as they finish dinner, many familiesrush to the television. To supplant viewing with other activities, it may prove helpful tomake a list of alternatives and put it on the fridge. Instead of reflexively plopping downin front of the tube, those interested in reducing their viewing can refer to the list.EXERCISING WILLPOWER. Viewers often know that a particular program or movie-of-the-week is not very good within the first few minutes, but instead of switching offthe set, they stick with it for the full two hours. It is natural to keep watching to findout what happens next. But once the set is off and peoplehave turned their attention to other things, theyrarely care anymore.ENFORCING LIMITS. A kitchen timer cancome in handy when setting time limits,especially with video games. When itrings, the kids know to stop. Someparents find that this works muchbetter than announcing the deadlinethemselves. The kids take the bell moreseriously.BLOCKING CHANNELS/V-CHIP.Television sets now come equipped withmicrochips that can be used to preventviewing of violent shows. In addition, electronicadd-on devices can count how many hours eachfamily member has viewed and block access beyond a particular quota.VIEWING SELECTIVELY. Rather than channel-surf, people can use the televisionlistings ahead of time to choose which programs to watch.USING THE VCR. Instead of watching a program, record it for later viewing. Manypeople never return to much of the material they have taped.GOING COLD TURKEY. Many families have succeeded in reducing viewing bylimiting the household to one set and placing it in a remote room of the house or in acloset. Others end their cable subscriptions or jettison the set altogether.SUPPORTING MEDIA EDUCATION. Schools in Canada and Australia, as well as in anincreasing number of states in the U.S., now require students to take classes inmedia education. These sharpen children’s ability to analyze what they see and hearand to make more mindful use of TV and other media. —R.K. and M.C.


content, of television that is unique.”The orienting response may partly

explain common viewer remarks suchas: “If a television is on, I just can’t keepmy eyes off it,” “I don’t want to watchas much as I do, but I can’t help it,”and “I feel hypnotized when I watchtelevision.” In the years since Reevesand Thorson published their pioneeringwork, researchers have delved deeper.Annie Lang’s research team at IndianaUniversity has shown that heart rate de-creases for four to six seconds after anorienting stimulus. In ads, action se-quences and music videos, formal fea-tures frequently come at a rate of oneper second, thus activating the orientingresponse continuously.

Lang and her colleagues have alsoinvestigated whether formal features af-fect people’s memory of what they haveseen. In one of their studies, participantswatched a program and then filled out ascore sheet. Increasing the frequency ofedits—defined here as a change fromone camera angle to another in the samevisual scene—improved memory recog-nition, presumably because it focusedattention on the screen. Increasing thefrequency of cuts—changes to a new vi-sual scene—had a similar effect but onlyup to a point. If the number of cuts ex-ceeded 10 in two minutes, recognitiondropped off sharply.

Producers of educational televisionfor children have found that formal fea-tures can help learning. But increasingthe rate of cuts and edits eventuallyoverloads the brain. Music videos andcommercials that use rapid intercuttingof unrelated scenes are designed to holdattention more than they are to conveyinformation. People may remember thename of the product or band, but thedetails of the ad itself float in one earand out the other. The orienting re-sponse is overworked. Viewers still at-tend to the screen, but they feel tiredand worn out, with little compensatingpsychological reward. Our ESM find-ings show much the same thing.

Sometimes the memory of the prod-uct is very subtle. Many ads today aredeliberately oblique: they have an en-gaging story line, but it is hard to tell



what they are trying to sell. Afterwardyou may not remember the productconsciously. Yet advertisers believe thatif they have gotten your attention, whenyou later go to the store you will feelbetter or more comfortable with a givenproduct because you have a vague recol-lection of having heard of it.

The natural attraction to television’ssound and light starts very early in life.Dafna Lemish of Tel Aviv University hasdescribed babies at six to eight weeksattending to television. We have ob-served slightly older infants who, whenlying on their backs on the floor, cranetheir necks around 180 degrees to catch

what light through yonder windowbreaks. This inclination suggests howdeeply rooted the orienting response is.

“TV Is Part of Them”THAT SAID, WE NEED to be carefulabout overreacting. Little evidence sug-gests that adults or children should stopwatching TV altogether. The problemscome from heavy or prolonged viewing.

The Experience Sampling Methodpermitted us to look closely at mostevery domain of everyday life: working,eating, reading, talking to friends, play-ing a sport, and so on. We wonderedwhether heavy viewers might experiencelife differently than light viewers do. Dothey dislike being with people more?Are they more alienated from work?What we found nearly leaped off thepage at us. Heavy viewers report feelingsignificantly more anxious and less hap-py than light viewers do in unstructuredsituations, such as doing nothing, day-dreaming or waiting in line. The differ-ence widens when the viewer is alone.

Subsequently, Robert D. McIlwraithof the University of Manitoba extensivelystudied those who called themselves TVaddicts on surveys. On a measure calledthe Short Imaginal Processes Inventory(SIPI), he found that the self-describedaddicts are more easily bored and dis-

tracted and have poorer attentional con-trol than the nonaddicts. The addicts saidthey used TV to distract themselves fromunpleasant thoughts and to fill time.Other studies over the years have shownthat heavy viewers are less likely to par-ticipate in community activities andsports and are more likely to be obesethan moderate viewers or nonviewers.

The question that naturally arises is:In which direction does the correlationgo? Do people turn to TV because ofboredom and loneliness, or does TVviewing make people more susceptible toboredom and loneliness? We and mostother researchers argue that the former is

generally the case, but it is not a simplecase of either/or. Jerome L. and DorothySinger of Yale University, among others,have suggested that more viewing maycontribute to a shorter attention span,diminished self-restraint and less pa-tience with the normal delays of dailylife. More than 25 years ago psycholo-gist Tannis M. MacBeth Williams of theUniversity of British Columbia studied amountain community that had no televi-sion until cable finally arrived. Overtime, both adults and children in thetown became less creative in problemsolving, less able to persevere at tasks,and less tolerant of unstructured time.

To some researchers, the most con-vincing parallel between TV and addic-tive drugs is that people experiencewithdrawal symptoms when they cutback on viewing. Nearly 40 years agoGary A. Steiner of the University ofChicago collected fascinating individualaccounts of families whose set had bro-ken—this back in the days when house-holds generally had only one set: “Thefamily walked around like a chickenwithout a head.” “It was terrible. We didnothing—my husband and I talked.”“Screamed constantly. Children both-ered me, and my nerves were on edge.Tried to interest them in games, but im-possible. TV is part of them.”

w w w . s c i a m . c o m S C I E N T I F I C A M E R I C A N 79

Television’s stylistic tricks—cuts, edits,zooms—can trigger involuntary responses.



In experiments, families have volun-teered or been paid to stop viewing, typ-ically for a week or a month. Manycould not complete the period of absti-nence. Some fought, verbally and physi-cally. Anecdotal reports from some fam-ilies that have tried the annual “TV turn-off” week in the U.S. tell a similar story.

If a family has been spending thelion’s share of its free time watchingtelevision, reconfiguring itself around anew set of activities is no easy task. Ofcourse, that does not mean it cannot bedone or that all families implode whendeprived of their set. In a review of thesecold-turkey studies, Charles Winick ofthe City University of New York con-cluded: “The first three or four days formost persons were the worst, even inmany homes where viewing was mini-mal and where there were other ongoingactivities. In over half of all the house-holds, during these first few days of loss,the regular routines were disrupted, fam-ily members had difficulties in dealingwith the newly available time, anxietyand aggressions were expressed. . . . Peo-ple living alone tended to be bored andirritated. . . . By the second week, a movetoward adaptation to the situation wascommon.” Unfortunately, researchershave yet to flesh out these anecdotes; noone has systematically gathered statisticson the prevalence of these withdrawalsymptoms.

Even though TV does seem to meetthe criteria for substance dependence,not all researchers would go so far as tocall TV addictive. McIlwraith said in1998 that “displacement of other activi-ties by television may be socially signifi-cant but still fall short of the clinical re-quirement of significant impairment.”

He argued that a new category of “TVaddiction” may not be necessary ifheavy viewing stems from conditionssuch as depression and social phobia.Nevertheless, whether or not we formal-ly diagnose someone as TV-dependent,millions of people sense that they can-not readily control the amount of televi-sion they watch.

Slave to the Computer ScreenALTHOUGH much less research hasbeen done on video games and comput-er use, the same principles often apply.

The games offer escape and distraction;players quickly learn that they feel bet-ter when playing; and so a kind of rein-forcement loop develops. The obviousdifference from television, however, isthe interactivity. Many video and com-puter games minutely increase in diffi-culty along with the increasing ability ofthe player. One can search for monthsto find another tennis or chess player ofcomparable ability, but programmedgames can immediately provide a near-perfect match of challenge to skill. Theyoffer the psychic pleasure—what one ofus (Csikszentmihalyi) has called “flow”—

that accompanies increased mastery ofmost any human endeavor. On the oth-er hand, prolonged activation of the ori-enting response can wear players out.Kids report feeling tired, dizzy and nau-seated after long sessions.

In 1997, in the most extreme medi-um-effects case on record, 700 Japanese

children were rushed to the hospital,many suffering from “optically stimu-lated epileptic seizures” caused by view-ing bright flashing lights in a Pokémonvideo game broadcast on Japanese TV.Seizures and other untoward effects ofvideo games are significant enough thatsoftware companies and platform man-ufacturers now routinely include warn-ings in their instruction booklets. Par-ents have reported to us that rapidmovement on the screen has caused mo-tion sickness in their young children af-ter just 15 minutes of play. Many

youngsters, lacking self-control and ex-perience (and often supervision), contin-ue to play despite these symptoms.

Lang and Shyam Sundar of Pennsyl-vania State University have been study-ing how people respond to Web sites.Sundar has shown people multiple ver-sions of the same Web page, identical ex-cept for the number of links. Users re-ported that more links conferred agreater sense of control and engagement.At some point, however, the number oflinks reached saturation, and addingmore of them simply turned people off.As with video games, the ability of Websites to hold the user’s attention seems todepend less on formal features than oninteractivity.

For growing numbers of people, thelife they lead online may often seem moreimportant, more immediate and moreintense than the life they lead face-to-face. Maintaining control over one’smedia habits is more of a challenge to-day than it has ever been. TV sets andcomputers are everywhere. But the smallscreen and the Internet need not interferewith the quality of the rest of one’s life.In its easy provision of relaxation and es-cape, television can be beneficial in limit-ed doses. Yet when the habit interfereswith the ability to grow, to learn newthings, to lead an active life, then it doesconstitute a kind of dependence andshould be taken seriously.

Television and the Quality of Life: How Viewing Shapes Everyday Experience. Robert Kubey andMihaly Csikszentmihalyi. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1990.Television Dependence, Diagnosis, and Prevention. Robert W. Kubey in Tuning in to Young Viewers:Social Science Perspectives on Television. Edited by Tannis M. MacBeth. Sage, 1995.“I’m Addicted to Television”: The Personality, Imagination, and TV Watching Patterns of Self-Identified TV Addicts. Robert D. McIlwraith in Journal of Broadcasting and Electronic Media, Vol. 42,No. 3, pages 371–386; Summer 1998.The Limited Capacity Model of Mediated Message Processing. Annie Lang in Journal ofCommunication, Vol. 50, No. 1, pages 46–70; March 2000.Internet Use and Collegiate Academic Performance Decrements: Early Findings. Robert Kubey,Michael J. Lavin and John R. Barrows in Journal of Communication, Vol. 51, No. 2, pages 366–382; June 2001.

M O R E T O E X P L O R E

Heavy viewers report feeling significantly moreanxious and less happy than light viewers do.


Television Addiction - Occidental...

Documents

Transcript of Television Addiction - Occidental...