"Every day, all across the United States, a parade of louts, losers and con-men whom most people would never allow in their homes enter anyway, through television."
        -Abandoned in the Wasteland: Children, Television and the First Amendment

        Americans are controlled by television. News, shows, advertisements, and everything else that is seen on the "One-Eyed Monster" put thoughts, ideas, and concepts into the minds of the nation that can be frightening to imagine. Once the habit is set, it is as difficult to break as an addiction to any type of drug. And the result is a society who's people can't think for themselves and rely on a square screen for everything they know.
        99.5 % of the homes in America have one or more television sets, and the members of these households spend an average of five hours in front of them a day. Even when they are not being viewed, these televisions are on for at least eight hours a day (A.C. Nielsen Company). These numbers vary with age groups; children, the elderly, and minority group generally watch more television than the average middle-aged white male or female. (Huston, 1999) With these statistics, it is safe to say that the main activity of life for Americans, aside from work or sleep, has become television. Eating, sleeping, talking, doing housework and many other activities are all done in company of the television set.

        Why do Americans dedicate so much time to watching television? For one, the constant company of the people on the television screen, fictional or not, gives the illusion of people being around the house. It compensates for loneliness, and makes the viewer feel like they are a part of something. Watching a favorite television show week after week, they can get emotionally involved, and it begins to feel like they are the friends he or she never had, with the type of life he or she always wanted.
        Television is also an easy source of information. It is a lot easier to turn on the television to watch the news, check the weather, or obtain information on any number of things than to look through the newspaper, listen to the radio, look it up on the Internet, or read a book. These activities require choices and thought, something that television and society discourages and people in general like to avoid.
        When problems seem overwhelming, it is nice to turn the brain "off" and occupy it with something else - most often television. People love to ignore problems. Perhaps if they ignore it, it will go away. Of course, this is not the case, but television's drug-like and hypnotic effect makes it easy to pretend they lead idyllic lives like the people on their favorite show. Sure, these beautiful, rich people have problems, but they're all solved within the half-hour that the show is on.
        Perhaps the biggest reason for watching television is the immense temptation to turn it on. The television is usually the main point of attention. If someone wants to sit on the couch, their bed, or at the kitchen table, there's usually a television nearby, and everything is arranged so that it can be seen well from any location. Once the habit is formed to flick on the television every time a person sits down, it is a difficult one for them to break.
        So how does television have this big of an effect on the human mind? There are many ways television draws us in and keeps us there.
        One of them is the comforting, flickering light coming from the screen, which is much like the flickering of a fire. The flickering light seems to be something attracts us and makes us want to watch. Watching a fire is something we started as cavemen and carried into the time before television was invented. We roasted our food, traded our stories and socialized while basking in the warmth of the fire. Now, televisions replace fireplaces, and we sit and eat our TV dinners while the people on the screen tell us the stories. It has become passive, instead of active. Another problem is, firelight is typically harmless, while the light produced by televisions is fluorescent. While a television admittedly poses less of a threat of catching someone or something on fire, fluorescent light may have the potential to do much damage to the human body. It has been shown to be very harmful to other species, as proved by Dr. John Ott, founder of the Environmental Health and Light Research Institute. Dr. Ott did many studies on the effects of fluorescent light on lab mice. (Mander, 174) His experiments with cancer-sensitive mice revealed that mice exposed to only natural light had a 97% survival rate and those exposed to only pink fluorescent light had a 61% survival rate. The mice under the pink fluorescent lights died from tumors, and their limbs and tail sometimes withered and fell off. The mice under fluorescent lights also increased in aggressiveness, hyperactive behavior, aimlessness and disorientation, and sexual patterns changed as well.
        For millions of years, human bodies were only exposed to natural light. It is only recently that they are exposed to more artificial light - especially fluorescent - than ever. Since the body and mind have adapted over thousands of years to function in natural light, maybe the fluorescent light alone is enough to have the negative effects linked to television.
        Another reason to watch television is the little effort it takes to get there and do it. It requires no thinking or muscle movement. When watching television, the body's metabolism slows down 14.5% from when simply lying in bed (Robert Klesges, Memphis State University). This can be just as harmful to the mind as it is to the body. Once parked in front of the television, the mind enters what is known as the "Alpha" mode. The Alpha mode is pretty easy to pick out - the muscles go limp, the jaw goes slack, and the eyes start to droop. Thus begins a highly venerable state in which the mind is totally passive, receptive and able to have whatever information the television programmers want to put into it. Mainly this is "Buy our products, now!" or something to that effect. But since they have the power, television programmers can put virtually anything into the mind.
        Americans watch about twenty minutes of advertisements for every hour of television, which comes out to be about 20,000 minutes of advertisements a year. Even if the viewer says he or she "doesn't watch advertisements" it is pretty much impossible to do so. Television shows constantly zoom in on what kind of soft drink the main character is drinking, where they're getting their fast food, etc. This is a largely used type of advertising, and it is becoming more and more popular as new technology makes it easier for people to avoid the regular commercials. Another popular excuse is "I am not affected by advertisements". This is also difficult to do. Why would gigantic corporations bother with advertisements if no one were motivated by them to go out and buy their product? Obviously, they're doing something right.
        The news is another danger to the television watcher's state of mind. Most Americans get all their news from television, and only get that side of the story. Huge corporations own many of the news channels that people depend on for their news. These companies obviously wouldn't show any stories that could be harmful to business. For example, if Giant Bathroom Products Supplier, Inc. owned Mega News Corporation, they wouldn't dare air a story on the dangers of toilet paper, because people might stop buying it. So, people all over America keep using toilet paper, because they didn't know it was dangerous, and thousands die from it. However, Giant Bathroom Products Supplier, Inc. didn't loose any money in the process.
        Americans watch a lot of television, and it is a major threat to them. It can do mental as well as physical harm, and soaks up a lot of time that could be spent doing more educational things. It limits the amount of and type of information they receive but makes them completely passive because of it's calming effects. All the advertising takes up a lot of this time, while telling people how to run their life. People have many different reasons for watching television, whether they are aware of it or not. Most of this comes out of boredom or loneliness. Having a television on for eight hours a day is like having an unlimited amount of strangers walking through the home, invading the privacy of the family members and telling them what to do in every aspect of their life. What to buy, where to buy it, how to act, how to think - or not think, where to go and how to get there. If this isn't bad enough, it all happens without the person being aware of it. It is hard to tell how much television influences the mind of the viewer, but it does have the potential to do a lot of harm, and control one of the most advanced civilizations in the world.