| N Jett on Fri, 25 Jan 2002 23:56:01 +0100 (CET) |
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Hi everyone, I am new to the list so forgive me if I'm not following proper
procedure here but I found an interesting article regarding studies of
TV/video addiction. I hope sharing this is appropriate for this list, I
apologize if it is not.
http://www.sciam.com/2002/0202issue/0202kubey.html
Television Addiction
By Robert Kubey and Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
...........
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
diversion has
gotten out of control is one of the great challenges of life.
Excessive cravings do not necessarily involve physical substances. Gambling
can become
compulsive; sex can become obsessive. One activity, however, stands out for
its prominence
and ubiquity--the world's most popular leisure pastime, television. Most
people admit to having a love-hate relationship with it. They complain about
the "boob tube" and "couch
potatoes," then they settle into their sofas and grab the remote control.
Parents commonly fret
about their children's viewing (if not their own). Even researchers who
study TV for a living
marvel at the medium's hold on them personally. Percy Tannenbaum of the
University of California at Berkeley has written:
"Among life's more embarrassing moments have been countless occasions
when I am engaged in conversation in a room while a TV set is on, and I
cannot for the life of me stop from periodically glancing over to the
screen. This occurs not only during dull conversations but during reasonably
interesting ones just as well."
Scientists have been studying the effects of television for decades,
generally focusing on whether watching violence on TV correlates with being
violent in real life [see "The Effects of Observing Violence," by Leonard
Berkowitz; Scientific American, February 1964; and "Communication and Social
Environment," by George Gerbner; September 1972]. Less attention has been
paid to the basic allure of the small screen--the medium, as opposed to the
message.
The term "TV addiction" is imprecise and laden with value judgments, but it
captures the essence of a very real phenomenon. Psychologists and
psychiatrists formally define substance dependence as a disorder
characterized by criteria that include spending a great deal of time using
the substance; using it more often than one intends; thinking about reducing
use or making repeated unsuccessful efforts to reduce use; giving up
important social, family or occupational activities to use it; and reporting
withdrawal symptoms when one stops using it. All these criteria can apply to
people who watch a lot of television. That does not mean that watching
television, per se, is problematic. Television can teach and amuse; it can
reach aesthetic heights; it can
provide much needed distraction and escape. The difficulty arises when
people strongly sense that they ought not to watch as much as they do and
yet find themselves strangely unable to reduce their viewing. Some knowledge
of how the medium exerts its pull may help heavy viewers gain better control
over their lives.
A Body at Rest Tends to Stay at Rest
The amount of time people spend watching television
is astonishing. On average, individuals in the industrialized world devote
three hours a day to the pursuit--fully half of their leisure time, and more
than on any single activity save work and sleep. At this rate, someone who
lives to 75 would spend nine years in front of the tube. To some
commentators, this devotion means simply that people enjoy TV and make a
conscious decision to watch it. But if that is the whole story, why do so
many people experience misgivings about how much they view? In Gallup polls
in 1992 and 1999, two out of five adult respondents and seven out of 10
teenagers said they spent too much time watching TV. Other surveys have
consistently shown that roughly 10 percent of adults call themselves TV
addicts.
To study people's reactions to TV, researchers have
undertaken laboratory experiments in which they have monitored the brain
waves (using an electroencephalograph, or EEG), skin resistance or heart
rate of people watching television. To track behavior and emotion in the
normal course of life, as opposed to the artificial conditions of the lab,
we have used the
Experience Sampling Method (ESM). Participants carried a beeper, and we
signaled them six to eight times a day, at random, over the period of a
week; whenever they heard the beep, they wrote down what they were doing and
how they were feeling using a standardized scorecard.
As one might expect, people who were watching TV when we beeped them
reported feeling relaxed and passive. The EEG studies similarly show less
mental stimulation, as measured by alpha brain-wave production, during
viewing than during reading.
What is more surprising is that the sense of
relaxation ends when the set is turned off, but the feelings of passivity
and lowered alertness continue. Survey participants commonly reflect that
television has somehow absorbed or sucked out their energy, leaving them
depleted. They say they have more difficulty concentrating after viewing
than before. In contrast, they rarely indicate such difficulty after
reading. After playing sports or engaging in hobbies, people report
improvements in mood. After watching TV, people's moods are about the same
or worse than before.
Within moments of sitting or lying down and pushing
the "power" button, viewers report feeling more relaxed. Because the
relaxation occurs quickly, people are conditioned to associate viewing with
rest and lack of tension. The association is positively reinforced because
viewers remain relaxed throughout viewing, and it is negatively reinforced
via the stress and dysphoric rumination that occurs once the screen goes
blank again.
Habit-forming drugs
work in similar ways. A tranquilizer that leaves the body
rapidly is much
more likely to cause dependence than one that leaves the body
slowly, precisely
because the user is more aware that the drug's effects are
wearing off.
Similarly, viewers' vague learned sense that they will feel less relaxed
if they stop
viewing may be a significant factor in not turning the set off. Viewing
begets more
viewing.
Thus, the irony of
TV: people watch a great deal longer than they plan to, even
though prolonged
viewing is less rewarding. In our ESM studies the longer
people sat in front of the set, the less
satisfaction they said they derived from it. When signaled, heavy viewers
(those who
consistently watch more than four hours a day)
tended to report on their ESM sheets that they enjoy TV less than light
viewers did (less than two hours a day). For some, a
twinge of unease or guilt that they aren't doing something more
productive may also accompany and depreciate the
enjoyment of prolonged viewing. Researchers in Japan, the U.K. and the
U.S. have found that this guilt occurs much more
among middle-class viewers than among less affluent ones.
Grabbing Your Attention
What is it about TV that has such a hold on us? In
part, the attraction seems to spring from our biological "orienting
response." First described by Ivan Pavlov in 1927,
the orienting response is our instinctive visual or auditory reaction to any
sudden or novel stimulus. It is part of our
evolutionary heritage, a built-in sensitivity to movement and potential
predatory
threats. Typical orienting reactions include
dilation of the blood vessels to the brain, slowing of the heart, and
constriction of
blood vessels to major muscle groups. Alpha waves
are blocked for a few seconds before returning to their baseline level,
which is determined by the general level of mental
arousal. The brain focuses its attention on gathering more information
while the rest of the body quiets.
In 1986 Byron Reeves of Stanford University, Esther
Thorson of the University of Missouri and their colleagues began to
study whether the simple formal features of
television--cuts, edits, zooms, pans, sudden noises--activate the orienting
response, thereby keeping attention on the screen.
By watching how brain waves were affected by formal features, the
researchers concluded that these stylistic tricks
can indeed trigger involuntary responses and "derive their attentional value
through the evolutionary significance of detecting
movement.... It is the form, not the content, of television that is unique."
The orienting response may partly explain common
viewer remarks such as: "If a
television is on, I just can't keep my eyes off it,"
"I don't want to watch as much as
I do, but I can't help it," and "I feel hypnotized
when I watch television." In the
years since Reeves and Thorson published their
pioneering work, researchers
have delved deeper. Annie Lang's research team at
Indiana University has shown
that heart rate decreases for four to six seconds
after an orienting stimulus. In ads,
action sequences and music videos, formal features
frequently come at a rate of
one per second, thus activating the orienting
response continuously.
Lang and her colleagues have also investigated
whether formal features affect
people's memory of what they have seen. In one of
their studies, participants
watched a program and then filled out a score sheet.
Increasing the frequency of
edits--defined here as a change from one camera
angle to another in the same
visual scene--improved memory recognition,
presumably because it focused
attention on the screen. Increasing the frequency of
cuts--changes to a new visual
scene--had a similar effect but only up to a point.
If the number of cuts exceeded
10 in two minutes, recognition dropped off sharply.
Producers of educational television for children
have found that formal features
can help learning. But increasing the rate of cuts
and edits eventually overloads
the brain. Music videos and commercials that use
rapid intercutting of unrelated
scenes are designed to hold attention more than they
are to convey information. People may remember the name of the
product or band, but the details of the ad itself
float in one ear and out the other. The orienting response is overworked.
Viewers still attend to the screen, but they feel
tired and worn out, with little compensating psychological reward. Our ESM
findings show much the same thing.
Sometimes the memory of the product is very subtle.
Many ads today are deliberately oblique: they have an engaging story
line, but it is hard to tell what they are trying to
sell. Afterward you may not remember the product consciously. Yet
advertisers believe that if they have gotten your
attention, when you later go to the store you will feel better or more
comfortable with a given product because you have a
vague recollection of having heard of it.
The natural attraction to television's sound and
light starts very early in life. Dafna Lemish of Tel Aviv University has
described babies at six to eight weeks attending to
television. We have observed slightly older infants who, when lying on
their backs on the floor, crane their necks around
180 degrees to catch what light through yonder window breaks. This
inclination suggests how deeply rooted the orienting
response is.
"TV Is Part of Them"
That said, we need to be careful about overreacting.
Little evidence suggests that adults or children should stop watching TV
altogether. The problems come from heavy or
prolonged viewing.
The Experience Sampling Method permitted us to look
closely at most every domain of everyday life: working, eating,
reading, talking to friends, playing a sport, and so
on. We wondered whether heavy viewers might experience life differently
than light viewers do. Do they dislike being with
people more? Are they more alienated from work? What we found nearly
leaped off the page at us. Heavy viewers report
feeling significantly more anxious and less happy than light viewers do in
unstructured situations, such as doing nothing,
daydreaming or waiting in line. The difference widens when the viewer is
alone.
Subsequently, Robert D. McIlwraith of the University
of Manitoba extensively studied those who called themselves TV
addicts on surveys. On a measure called the Short
Imaginal Processes Inventory (SIPI), he found that the self-described
addicts are more easily bored and distracted and
have poorer attentional control than the nonaddicts. The addicts said they
used TV to distract themselves from unpleasant
thoughts and to fill time. Other studies over the years have shown that
heavy
viewers are less likely to participate in community
activities and sports and are more likely to be obese than moderate viewers
or nonviewers.
The question that naturally arises is: In which
direction does the correlation go?
Do people turn to TV because of boredom and
loneliness, or does TV viewing
make people more susceptible to boredom and
loneliness? We and most other
researchers argue that the former is generally the
case, but it is not a simple case
of either/or. Jerome L. and Dorothy Singer of Yale
University, among others,
have suggested that more viewing may contribute to a
shorter attention span,
diminished self-restraint and less patience with the
normal delays of daily life.
More than 25 years ago psychologist Tannis M.
MacBeth Williams of the
University of British Columbia studied a mountain
community that had no
television until cable finally arrived. Over time,
both adults and children in the town became less creative in problem
solving,
less able to persevere at tasks, and less tolerant
of unstructured time.
To some researchers, the most convincing parallel
between TV and addictive drugs is that people experience withdrawal
symptoms when they cut back on viewing. Nearly 40
years ago Gary A. Steiner of the University of Chicago collected
fascinating individual accounts of families whose
set had broken--this back in the days when households generally had only
one set: "The family walked around like a chicken
without a head." "It was terrible. We did nothing--my husband and I
talked." "Screamed constantly. Children bothered me,
and my nerves were on edge. Tried to interest them in games, but
impossible. TV is part of them."
In experiments, families have volunteered or been
paid to stop viewing, typically for a week or a month. Many could not
complete the period of abstinence. Some fought,
verbally and physically. Anecdotal reports from some families that have
tried the annual "TV turn-off" week in the U.S. tell
a similar story.
If a family has been spending the lion's share of
its free time watching television, reconfiguring itself around a new set of
activities is no easy task. Of course, that does not
mean it cannot be done or that all families implode when deprived of their
set. In a review of these cold-turkey studies,
Charles Winick of the City University of New York concluded: "The first
three
or four days for most persons were the worst, even
in many homes where viewing was minimal and where there were other
ongoing activities. In over half of all the
households, during these first few days of loss, the regular routines were
disrupted,
family members had difficulties in dealing with the
newly available time, anxiety and aggressions were expressed.... People
living alone tended to be bored and irritated.... By
the second week, a move toward adaptation to the situation was common."
Unfortunately, researchers have yet to flesh out
these anecdotes; no one has systematically gathered statistics on the
prevalence of these withdrawal symptoms.
Even though TV does seem to meet the criteria for
substance dependence, not all researchers would go so far as to call TV
addictive. McIlwraith said in 1998 that
"displacement of other activities by television may be socially significant
but still fall
short of the clinical requirement of significant
impairment." He argued that a new category of "TV addiction" may not be
necessary if heavy viewing stems from conditions
such as depression and social phobia. Nevertheless, whether or not we
formally diagnose someone as TV-dependent, millions
of people sense that they cannot readily control the amount of
television they watch.
Slave to the Computer Screen
Although much less research has been done on video
games and computer use, the same principles often apply. The games
offer escape and distraction; players quickly learn
that they feel better when playing; and so a kind of reinforcement loop
develops. The obvious difference from television,
however, is the interactivity. Many video and computer games minutely
increase in difficulty along with the increasing
ability of the player. One can search for months to find another tennis or
chess player of comparable ability, but programmed
games can immediately provide a near-perfect match of challenge to
skill. They offer the psychic pleasure--what one of
us (Csikszentmihalyi) has called "flow"--that accompanies increased
mastery of most any human endeavor. On the other
hand, prolonged activation of the orienting response can wear players
out. Kids report feeling tired, dizzy and nauseated
after long sessions.
In 1997, in the most extreme medium-effects case on
record, 700 Japanese children were rushed to the hospital, many
suffering from "optically stimulated epileptic
seizures" caused by viewing bright flashing lights in a Pokémon video game
broadcast on Japanese TV. Seizures and other
untoward effects of video games are significant enough that software
companies and platform manufacturers now routinely
include warnings in their instruction booklets. Parents have reported
to us that rapid movement on the screen has caused
motion sickness in their young children after just 15 minutes of play.
Many youngsters, lacking self-control and experience
(and often supervision), continue to play despite these symptoms.
Lang and Shyam Sundar of Pennsylvania State
University have been studying how people respond to Web sites. Sundar
has shown people multiple versions of the same Web
page, identical except for the number of links. Users reported that
more links conferred a greater sense of control and
engagement. At some point, however, the number of links reached
saturation, and adding more of them simply turned
people off. As with video games, the ability of Web sites to hold the
user's attention seems to depend less on formal
features than on interactivity.
For growing numbers of people, the life they lead
online may often seem more important, more immediate and more intense
than the life they lead face-to-face. Maintaining
control over one's media habits is more of a challenge today than it has
ever
been. TV sets and computers are everywhere. But the
small screen and the Internet need not interfere with the quality of the
rest of one's life. In its easy provision of
relaxation and escape, television can be beneficial in limited doses. Yet
when the
habit interferes with the ability to grow, to learn
new things, to lead an active life, then it does constitute a kind of
dependence
and should be taken seriously.
Further Information:
Television and the Quality of Life: How Viewing
Shapes Everyday Experience. Robert Kubey and Mihaly
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 of Communication, 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.
The Authors
ROBERT KUBEY and MIHALY CSIKSZENTMIHALYI met in the
mid-1970s at the University of Chicago, where Kubey
began his doctoral studies and where
Csikszentmihalyi served on the faculty. Kubey is now a professor at Rutgers
University and director of the Center for Media
Studies (www.mediastudies.rutgers.edu). His work focuses on the
development of media education around the world. He
has been known to watch television and even to play video games
with his sons, Ben and Daniel. Csikszentmihalyi is
the C. S. and D. J. Davidson Professor of Psychology at Claremont
Graduate University. He is a fellow of the American
Academy of Arts and Sciences. He spends summers writing in the
Bitterroot Mountains of Montana, without newspapers
or TV, hiking with grandchildren and other occasional visitors.
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