Does Television Affect Us?

I am no psychologist, but I am one of the thousands guilty in the entertainment field who combine recorded image and audio, to manipulate someone's emotions or feelings. It is what we do in the film and television industry. Whether it is a major studio film, instructional video or even a public service announcement (PSA), we use a multitude of artistic elements and attempt to make you feel a certain way. If we did not do this, nothing we created would make any sense, and you'd have to figure it out for yourselves. So when it is asked, does television affect us? My answer is, yes, yes it does.

But before we light our torches and gather into a mob to eliminate this evil monster from our society, understand that television is only part of the equation in this mind manipulation. It also has a lot to do with how we physically react to what we are seeing, and I do not mean jumping up and down after your team scores. When we watch television, we allow the images and sound into our brains, usually of free will. To do this, we must unarm our mental defenses, letting what we are seeing and hearing command our focus. In this state of mind we are defenseless, and open to suggestion, but television is not the cause of this. TV is only the knowing messenger. The natural physical reaction while we watch television is common in all of us, and nothing new. In fact, we have been doing this since humans began grouping together. When we were listening to storytellers by a stone-age campfire, even then humans were allowing our minds to focus on the story being told. This tendency to subconsciously submit can be seen in people while they watch a live concert or stage play, a comedian in a nightclub, or even in church.

When I was young and watching some old movie on TV with my family, I would occasionally look over to my mother. She grew up in a time before television, when radio and movie theaters were the main entertainment. As she watched the old drama on TV, I could see the emotions in her face, reflecting what was going on in the story. During a sad scene her face would droop with a look of sorrow, and during a happy scene it would light up in a joyous smile. She was totally engulfed in what she was seeing and hearing. I even catch myself doing the same thing while watching television or a movie. Think about that next time you are on vacation being entertained by a street performer, or looking up at skyscrapers while walking the streets of a big city. Pickpockets are very aware of this human tendency to lose oneself while focusing on a distraction.

Next time you are sitting around with your family or friends watching television, try this. Right in the middle of the program, just when the plot of the story is thickening, tear your eyes away from the screen (it will be difficult), and look at everybody else in the room. What you will see is a roomful of people with wide eyes glued to the screen, like zombies. It is the same look on our faces when we play video games, only less intense. The significance of this is simple. Our comfortable chairs enhance the experience, cradling our bodies, and urging relaxation. The stage is then set. We disarm our defenses and release ourselves to the screen. It is a natural reaction. In a four part series in Mother Earth News Magazine (Oct. 1978 & March 1979), there were excerpts from a book written by Jerry Mender, Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television (1977, William Morrow & Co., Inc.). If you can find the Mother Earth back issues (I only had two of them) or the book, it is interesting reading.

The just of it is that we are in a state of mental submission while we watch television. Does someone want to influence us? Is it a conspiracy? Is an evil group of people behind this, who want to dominate our minds? In a roundabout way yes this is true, but there are no conspiracies or evil ones bent on conquering the world. Everyone uses this manipulative influence when creating image and sound, or even when creating any other art form for that matter. It is merely just a way of creating a presentation to get the idea or suggestion across to the viewer. Look at it this way. I once worked on a promotional video for a special education division, to use in their request for additional state funding. We used the same manipulative techniques as they do in product commercials in how we planned the script, staged the camera shots and edited in post-production. This was not for an evil purpose, but these same techniques are applied to any project.

In the case of television advertisement, most people do not know that prior to releasing any brand name product, many scientific tests are conducted in how their product will look and be marketed. Package shape, logo placement, and other consumer identifying aspects are determined and pre-tested in order to see how people react to it. Color is an important factor. In the old days when most people used dry laundry detergent, some brands had little blue or green speckles in them. Those speckles were not green or blue for nothing. Product manufacturers previously spent a great amount of money for scientific studies in determining how colors affect the human psyche. Green and blue make us feel fresh and satisfied, and other emotions I am sure. Flavored drinks are another example. We all now know that raspberry flavored water does not have to be red, but adding red makes it more appealing and reassuring to the eye, helping us to feel more satisfied after drinking it.

Never mind the television, there is more manipulation going on all around us than we realize. Let us say that you shop for groceries once a week. You get your list together and head out for the store. You have done this hundreds of times, and have your own personal route that you use when grocery shopping here. In reality, your personal route is everyone else's route because the store is set up to make it that way. Whichever side it is on, you will head for the produce section first, usually near the bakery and deli. You need meat, and that department is always in the back. The center of the store is an organized maze designed for searching. On the bottom shelves are the things you need, the middle and top shelves have things you may not ordinarily buy. Do you ever wonder why they are always moving products around from one section to another? To keep you searching for what you need, of course, you will purchase something else along the way. That is the strategy anyhow. Finally for your convenience, are the refrigerated and frozen sections, but it is not over yet. You must endure the gauntlet at the register stand. Even if you do not have kids, there is always something on the racks sure to entice anyone. If you do have kids, it becomes a nightmare, and you agree to buy them just to keep the kids quiet.

Everything around us is a manipulation designed to suggest what we are to do or think. From timed traffic signals to zig-zagging lines we stand in at amusement parks. Bringing this back to the subject of television, yes sometimes there are extremely obvious attempts at persuading us what to do or think, but often times they are cleverly subtle. Does TV influence us? Yes, of course it does. Haven't you ever noticed how people on television speak? "Today we're going to tell you what the latest summer fashions are." Or how about, "Now we will show you the hottest gadgets you should buy." "What movie shouldyou see? I'll be right back with the answer." You may not agree with me, but TV tells us what to do, what to think, how to dress, what to eat, how we should medicate ourselves, and in just about every other aspect of our lives. How else would we know what to buy, where to go, what the weather will be like, or what they think we should do with our investments? It goes even deeper than that, because feature movies do the same thing in their own artistic way. This is all achieved because of how we freely submit to the information physically and subconsciously.

The only hurdle left for someone creating the piece, is get you to see it all the way through. Persuade you to hear them out, and see what they have to present. In television it can be a sitcom, crime drama, or the commercials during the break. It is all the same, to get your undivided attention. These days we sit in comfort with big screens and surround sound systems. We have created miniature movie theaters in our own homes, in order to be totally immersed in what we are watching. The faces onscreen are life-like in size, almost as if they are there in your living room. It is relaxing, and you feel safe and secure. All defenses are lowered and you involve yourself with what is onscreen.

You are open to ideas and suggestions in this mental state. This is when you are most vulnerable, and the makers of commercials know it, like mental pickpockets. They hope you will sustain this mental state of mind at the break, hoping their commercials pass on through to you in thirty-second intervals. You may not jump up from your seat and rush out to buy something, but next time you are out shopping, they hope to have convinced you enough to try their product. It is why their commercials get repeated over and over again. Does it work? You better believe it. Why do they keep making commercials of cheap gadgets for $19.95? Why, because it works. You will probably see the gadgets at your local flea market in a year, but in that spontaneous television moment, the manufacturer persuaded the customer to buy it, with a thirty-second commercial repeated over and over.

If this all concerns you, you have my understanding, but as we have seen, being open to new ideas or concepts is a natural function of the human mind. This is a reality. Unless we isolate ourselves we cannot avoid these manipulations of the mind, because they are not only in television, commercials or movies, they are everywhere. If not a stone-age storyteller, newspaper, play, or song, it will just be something else to inform and entertain us. Even if we were to abandon television, another industry would rise to take its place. Isn't the Internet already a prime candidate if this were to happen? And look at what the 'Information Highway' has become. We cannot fight the manipulative techniques used to distract our minds, but we can choose what enters our consciousness. A mental firewall, if you will. We can only control it within our minds, and it requires vigilance and practice.

The common myth is that people immediately get up and go to the kitchen when a commercial break begins. Listen, I know the nation is overweight, but this myth would put each one of us in the four hundred pound weight range. The truth is, we spend more time in front of the TV while the commercials are playing. You may turn and have a conversation with someone next to you, but the commercials are fighting for your attention with vibrant images and sound. Quickness in editing creates flashes, and makes it appear that you might be missing something, requiring your attention. Even if they do not get your full attention, they can at least get into your mind with what you hear. Audio sound is another subconscious area thought to be useful for memory purposes.

Are you scared yet? Well don't be. It is easy to shut off this manipulation in your mind, like a light switch on the wall. This next part goes out to women who complain that men hog the TV remote control. One reason for this greediness is that some of us know how to turn off the mental manipulation of commercials. One way to quickly avoid them is to lower or mute the audio. This makes it easier to turn your head away from the evil. But that is no fun unless you have something to converse about, with whom ever else is in the room. Personally, I use my memory button, with a backup TV program of secondary interest. When a commercial break begins on the main show, I hit the memory button. Hopefully both programs do not run their commercial breaks at the same time. If all else fails, I will search around until a program comes back on. I don't want to mess with DV recording machines. It isn't that important.

The point is that television influences our minds only if we allow it to, and the plain fact of the matter is that in most cases, we do allow TV to influence our minds. They advertised personal computers, and all the nifty and useful new gadgets we use today, on television. Didn't they? We never even had to do any research, because the convenience of these things was all presented on many television programs to get us used to the idea. Just like anything else, there are both good and bad aspects about television. Some of it can be useful and informative, and some of it (others say most of it) is just useless pap. It is up to us to be vigilant and filter out what we find useless, whatever methods we use.

Here is one final note. If we do not insist that the entertainment industry, network television, cable, film, music, or otherwise, strive for higher standards in what they present to us, they will assume that we do not know any better. Then there is no one else to blame but our selves. They will keep churning out cost-effective mind jelly until somebody with even a little vision, causes them to suddenly jump on the bandwagon and copy what they do. We will continue to accept their mind jelly and gorge on it as we do now. The industry and those who use it, feel that they can tell us what movies are the best, what entertainment is the hottest, or even what is good for us, and we will follow along if they present it in a neat and entertaining package. We have proved that they are right time and time again. This does not necessarily have to be the case, but it is up to us to hold them to a higher standard.