Const. Khoa N. Hoang
I have often wondered how much television has affected my life, from the products I buy to the movies that I watch because of particular actors. We are not always aware of subconscious influences that consistently affect our decision making.
Furthermore, the relationship with our television is a personal one, intimate and exciting. But is it healthy? Like many relationships we remember the good and ignore the bad. We see that it brings people together for events while forgetting that it makes us fat while sitting there inactive. Television gives us cognitive stimulus but limits the need to cognitively think.
TV trends are both an influence and an indicator of our society and can even reflect an important issue of a particular decade. Even the commercials that play within each decade are a symbol of consumer priority. We can no longer deny the influence of media on our decision-making ability and must recognize the actual limits of our own choices.
The average American watches five hours of television each day and the average Canadian watches four hours daily. Although most of the television watching occurs on the weekend, that still adds up to 33 hours every week for the average Canadian to sit in front of their televisions.
Every generation has television trends that influence watchers of that period. Television in the 1980s meant being exposed to influences involving family dynamics like Full House, Family Ties, and the Cosby Show. The ’90s brought us an influx of comedy shows targeting a younger audience such as Fresh Prince, Friends, and Seinfeld.
By 2000, television gave us our first taste of reality TV with Survivor Island. It wasn’t long until reality TV started asking what we thought. American Idol Season 1 aired in the summer of 2002, and launched the current trend we have today of judgment television shows. It was quickly followed by dancing, singing, and more talent for us all to judge.
Producers can now make money on advertisement and voting fees within the same show, without having to pay for any real actors. The formula seems perfect creating a successful business that provides millions of dollars in revenue.
My concern is the common practice of providing judgment by a generation of Millennials (the title given to those born after 1981) who have already been labeled as being more interested in themselves than community, preferring fame over self-esteem, according to the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.
Our society is changing and therefore the definition of happiness is changing. We need to recognize that happiness is now individually defined and not a society norm of morals and values as it once was. Marriage at 18 is now frowned upon and having more than four kids seems like a nightmare to most; unlike the days of my grandparents who married at 16 and had 10 kids.
We need more conversations about parenting to learn how to build capacity for ourselves and future generations. For now, perhaps turning off the television and reading a simple article will have to do.