Cable TV Ruins Bhutan 483
Christ-on-a-bike writes "This article in The Guardian discusses the negative impact of TV on the population of Bhutan. It has only been legal there for four years. Violence, crime and drug use are on the up. Was this inevitable, and what does it say about the influence of TV on Western cultures?" Our previous story about Bhutan talks about the radical impact of television, but without as much emphasis on the darker side.
Still... (Score:4, Funny)
TV doesn't controll my mind! (Score:3, Funny)
Why its worth it (Score:4, Insightful)
likewise, the leading cause of premature death is accidents, mainly automobile accidents among young people. Thus clearly diving is not worth it.
Indeed we should all be on some prozium (see Equilibrium) and Drug Evasion should be a cime (see THX 1138) and our minds should be filled with Trivia (see Farenheight 451), because its a well established fact that humans are dangerous if not pacified. Clearly exploration, curiosity, dissatisfaction, and acting on ones ideas are not worth it.
SO maybe you want to complain that, well, heck, this is "dukes of hazzard" and "freinds" not master piece theater. Having these is not worth an increase in crime, etc... Really? so its okay for you to watch this but well it corrupts "other" people's minds. Right.
People like this stuff.
Tangos and Schoolin' (Score:3, Informative)
Terrorist LEADERS are usually above average in education while thier foot soldiers are typically not.
Tim McVeigh "was very bright, not top of his class, but a solid student. He left school in 1986 and dropped out of college soon after."
Mullah Mohammed Omar "has no formal schooling. His education consists of training sessions at a madrassah, an Islamic school devoted to the study of the principles of Islam and the rea
Re:Why its worth it (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Why its worth it (Score:3, Interesting)
There is a great bit of difference between those two groups of people. The first group is desperate, uneducated, and behaving just like a wounded animal. And the other group is educated, altruistic, and behaving just like a cunning predator. In the case of the latter group, I believe it takes quite a bit of intellectual maturity to make a connection between political action and personal sacrifice.
And in the case of th
Re:Why its worth it (Score:5, Informative)
here is just one of many such articles...no doubt you never saw this because it weas not in USA today, but instead in an actual scientific journal.
Chronicle of Higher Education
From the issue dated June 6, 2003
Seeking the Roots of Terrorism
By ALAN B. KRUEGER and JITKA MALECKOVÃ
In the aftermath of September 11, 2001, a consensus quickly emerged that
poverty and lack of education were major causes of terrorist acts and support
for terrorism. Subscribing to that theory are politicians, journalists, and
many scholars, as well as officials responsible for administering aid to poor
countries. For example, James D. Wolfensohn, president of the World Bank,
asserted that the war on terrorism "will not be won until we have come to grips
with the problem of poverty and thus the sources of discontent."
The consensus is bipartisan. "We fight against poverty," George W. Bush
said in a speech in Monterrey, Mexico, "because hope is an answer to terror.
failed governments that too often allow conditions that terrorists can seize."
At the other end of the political spectrum, Al Gore, at the Council on Foreign
Relations, argued that the anger that underlies terrorism in the Islamic world
stems from "the continued failure to thrive, as rates of economic growth
stagnate, while the cohort of unemployed young men under 20 continues to
increase."
Many well-regarded public intellectuals also concur. For example, Elie
Wiesel claimed, "Education is the way to eliminate terrorism." And the Nobel
laureate Kim Dae Jung asserted, "At the bottom of terrorism is poverty."
With such a strong and broad coalition in agreement, we asked, what
evidence links poverty and poor education to terrorism? Perhaps surprisingly,
the relevant literature and the new evidence that we assembled challenge the
consensus. In a study we recently circulated as a National Bureau of Economic
Research working paper, we considered support for, and participation in,
terrorism at both individual and national levels. Although the available data
at the national level are weaker, both types of evidence point in the same
direction and lead us to conclude that any connection between poverty,
education, and terrorism is, at best, indirect, complicated, and probably quite
weak.
Full text
http://chronicle.com/free/v49/i39/39b01001.
Learining by example (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Learining by example (Score:2)
Re:Learining by example (Score:2)
Maybe he's right, and there aren't many intelligent adults...
Re:Learining by example (Score:2)
the fact that they are 'supposed' to doesn't mean that they will. If people did what they were 'supposed' to be able to do, there would be no violence in the world at all.
Obviously, that is not the case.
Re:Learining by example (Score:5, Insightful)
Your definition of an "intelligent adult" is itself conditioned by the social context in which you were raised (which didn't seem to rate orthography very highly).
I read this article in the print edition earlier today, and feel that your point is perfectly addressed by the words in the conclusion:
Some may think it's naive of a nation to base its national goals on a "Gross National Happiness" metric; I think we could do a lot worse. Don't slag off the people of Bhutan until you appreciate what they had, and appear to be losing.
But also bear in mind that this article isn't claiming that there is any definitive proof that the advent of TV is destroying Bhutan's society; it's raising a question which is being debated by the people of Bhutan, the question of whether or not TV is having an adverse effect on a land which has been one of the last bastions of civilisation without the thirst for mass communication.
Om mane padme om :-)
Re:Learining by example (Score:3, Interesting)
Yup, let's buy more stuff and kill each other over oil. Let's all eat feaces everyday (Book: Fast Food Nation) and be proud that it's cheap. I think I'll kill your children if it makes me money. If not "Gross National Happiness" then what? You want every company to become an Enron? Those Enron executives have tens of millions of Dollars, they are succesful by the "American Dream" cultural metric so you h
Re:Learining by example (Score:5, Insightful)
I think your view is unreasonably idealistic. We greatly overrate ourselves when it comes to our ability to control what we believe, and most of us are largely unaware of our own psychology.
I believe that the omnipresent media constantly washing over us affects us all in ways that we aren't even aware of, regardless of how smart (we think) we are.
One of the more visible social effects of this is the way advertising induces people to make stupid purchasing decisions. There are huge inefficiencies in the economies of free markets because of people's weak minds and manipulation by the "controlling classes", directly through advertisers and indirectly by their agents in the popular culture.
naturally this capability is applied to domains other than product marketing as well.
It's the new and improved thought control - now with a sweet mango-passionfruit twist that consumers can't resist.
Re:Learining by example (Score:3, Insightful)
Please. If we have to rely on people being mature and acting responsibly we'll never get anywhere, except maybe to a Tragedy of the Commons scenario.
People are selfish, greedy and corrupt. They will ALWAYS abuse the system and they will ALWAYS do what's best for THEM.
We're only animals, dammit.
Re:Learining by example (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Learining by example (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Learining by example (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Learining by example (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:What one moment! (Score:3, Insightful)
You are ignoring the fact that the US has a unique set of social problems, and it is exporting those problems to the rest of the world. Europe is a good example of this because western Europe is the main place the US has been exporting its culture to for several decades.
In Europe we now have: firstly the highschool killings, then there is the
Re:Learining by example (Score:5, Insightful)
And you probably don't even see the irony in your own statement. To me, a society that produces scum like you who think it's ok to destroy other societies because of how *you* define "backwards" has got to be the most backward society on earth.
Re:Learining by example (Score:5, Insightful)
Listen, Westerners are exposed to all sorts of lifestyles, including "backwards" ones like Bhutanese culture. However, you don't see many of us living on top of mountains without electricity, running water, or television. Why? Because we like our modern society.
No one is forcing the Bhutanese to change. They are making the changes themselves. The Bhutanese people have been exposed to the Western lifestyle, and they are finding that they like it. It's not like we are marching in with tanks and forcing people to watch "The Simpsons" at gunpoint.
If you want to help sustain a feudal society, pack up your bags and go live in one. Give up your TV, your computer, your instant dinners, your modern medical treatment, and your hot and cold running water and go live on top of a mountain somewhere and eat Yak cheese (which probably is good). The reason that you don't move to Bhutan is that you aren't interested in giving up your lifestyle for $1,200 a year and all the buddhism you can stomach. Apparently some of the folks in Bhutan feel the same way.
Keeping people in a bottle so that you can preseve their culture is like keeping your four-year-old girl in a closet so that Satan can't tempt her. No matter how good your intentions, the action is flat out wrong.
Re:Learining by example (Score:4, Insightful)
If you think guns are the only way to abuse power, perhaps you missed a little company called Microsloth. No one came with a gun and forced (almost) everyone to stop using Nutscrape either.
Keeping people in a bottle so that you can preseve their culture
I agree, where in my posting did you see that I said anything about what should or shouldn't be allowed in Bhutan? I am not about to forbid anyone from using windoze. That doesn't mean I have to like it when they do.
Do you think that TV and instant dinners and hot water make rich countries morally superior to "backward" countries? Is that how you judge progress, simple physical wealth? If so, then that defintily rates as backwards in my book.
Re:Learining by example (Score:3, Insightful)
If you really want people exposed to all their choices, you should be pushing to bring them the Internet. They they can all read
Of course, feudal governments do like to block internet access. It's 80% porn, y'know. Even worse, people might discover google, start reading news.go
programming, not television (Score:5, Interesting)
If the US can prohibit nudity and profanity on television, it seems pretty reasonable that other countries might prohibit violence, greed, commercialism and consumerism, etc.
Re:programming, not television (Score:2, Troll)
Screening is not a good solution just like censoring is a bad idea.
The better way is to explain or display negative examples in a positive way. This way we can educate people on what is good and what is bad.
Re:programming, not television (Score:3, Insightful)
And that's exactly what's happened in the west and what you see happening in Bhutan at a speed that makes people finally take notice.
The propaganda is crafted to be as strong as possible. It's effective enough to make share holders allow corporations to spend millions on this. You cannot fight this with merely 'explaining' that there's more to life than consuming. The message is simply too strong, too ubiquitious.
Money should no
Re:programming, not television (Score:4, Insightful)
All TV does it reflect the society or country it resides in, if you banish drugs/sex/crime/greed from US TV overnight do you seriously believe those vices will instantly disappear from society? These are wider social and political problems that require creative thinking and hard choices in the real world, trying to deny the existence of problems buy censoring them, or trying to censor them, on the broadcast media doesn't solve anything, it's simply indicates a society in denial.
However, this conceit hardly surprises me, I've seen maddening amounts of puritanical religiosity in the US, they truly lead the Western world in this deptartment, but they also lead the same world when it comes to violence, infidelity, divorce and acrimonious litigiousness. Faith is simply to sooth the conscience, the very fact it's so insincere makes it worse than pure dogma, because it can be manipulated on a whim, the same goes for banning the expression of undesirable things, it doesn't make them disappear.
(Cue, -1 troll, Un-American, another cynical Brit who see's things too clearly).
Re:programming, not television (Score:5, Insightful)
No, what is "naive and absurd" is to believe that people can watch something as graphic and emotional as television for (on average) hours a day and not be profoundly affected by it. And corporate America disagrees with your view as well, otherwise they wouldn't be spending billions on television advertising every year.
A lot of current television sets political agendas, it instills irrational fear for political purposes, it causes people to overeat and overconsume, and it glorifies violence and casual sex. And campaigns like anti-smoking commercials show that even a little bit of positive television can have a big impact. Improve television further and you will reduce many social ills.
Re:programming, not television (Score:3, Interesting)
Do contented happy people who are happy with their lives to become crimials? The answer is obviously no.
The real cause is information. The people of Bhutan are now bombarded with a million new concepts that they had not considered before. Now that they have learned more about the real world, and not the government approved world, they are more jaded and unhappy about their place in it.
Drugs for example...the government probably told them for years that illegal drugs would do
Re:programming, not television (Score:3, Insightful)
So images of an idealized world that they can never access is
Re:programming, not television (Score:3, Insightful)
Guess who runs the company that made the film of Fight Club?
Re:programming, not television (Score:3, Interesting)
damn it i knew tv was bad (Score:2, Funny)
Culture Shock, not "evil" TV (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't think we're seeing negative elements suddenly overtake their society but the expression of human nature in a very dramatic way. The religious take on the "good life" simply folded for many of them and new avenues of expression opened up. This is the teething stage, soon they'll learn to live with information or, much less likely, crumble under the weight of it.
Culture shock has happened countless times through history. Technological advances, influx of immigrantion, sudden changes in government leadership, etc all contribute to the destabilization of the status quo. Its far too easy to bash television here, its just the medium and whats more important is how the new messages interacts with old messages.
I think the article counters the headline best. (Score:2, Troll)
Yes, we are seeing some different types of crime, but that just reflects the fact that our society is changing in many ways. A culture as rich and sophisticated as ours can survive trash on TV and people are quite capable of turning off the rubbish.
These people went from a kingdom without television to a democracy with it in a four year span.
Dayam.
In my culture (US (and yes we have one)) our resistance to change is
Re:I think the article counters the headline best. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Culture Shock, not "evil" TV (Score:3, Funny)
I think you're making a valid point, but I have to wonder whether MTV and Fox News can be described as "new ideas".
New something, certainly. Maybe Bhutani horses needed new light cast on their excrement ;-)
heh (Score:2, Interesting)
Some of the Best Quotes... (Score:5, Interesting)
If you came and found a strange man teaching your kids to punch each other, or trying to sell them all kinds of products, you'd kick him right out of your house, but here you are; you come in and the TV is on, and you don't think twice about it."--Jerome Singer
"Television is basically teaching whether you want it or not."--Jim Henson, Muppets creator
Remember kids: (Score:5, Insightful)
Just look at the article itself:
In June 1999, Bhutan became the last nation in the world to turn on television. The Dragon King had lifted a ban on the small screen as part of a radical plan to modernise his country
Call me naive, but I seriously doubt cable TV was the ONLY thing done to 'modernise his country'. But, telling the whole story never sells eyeballs, now does it?
Re:Remember kids: (Score:2)
Everytime I see that Old Navy botox queen I want to smash things, snort cocaine, and set the store on fire.
Re:Remember kids: (Score:2)
If people could learn that simple fact, the world would be a much better place my friend.
Re:Remember kids: (Score:5, Funny)
Selling eyeballs probably fucked 'em up plenty, too.
True (Score:4, Insightful)
Correlation means that two things are connected in some way, and that way may be causial.
Re:Remember kids: (Score:5, Insightful)
Quite. If you look, you'll notice one of the murders being blamed on TV was this one:
Yep, obviously all TV's fault. Or this one:
The first one reminded us alcohol abuse was a problem before. We have two murders: one by a guy on drugs, the other by a drunk - how is either of these TV's fault? Did the first guy get his heroin via the TV? Did the other get drunk (an existing vice, as the article points out) from a program about alcohol?
TV is a convenient scapegoat. Dealing with the reality - that these people have led very sheltered lives so far, and are struggling to deal with life now some of that isolation has ended - is much harder.
Just wait... (Score:5, Funny)
Newsflash: we do what we see (Score:5, Interesting)
It says what we've always known: that behaviour is heavily influenced by observation. Put a kid in an environment where everyone throws their rubbish in the bin and he'll do the same. Put the same kid in an environment where everyone throws stones at people with red hair and he'll do that too.
Bombard a kid 24/7 with images of guns, explosions and murders left, right and centre and he'll want to join in the action. We learn by repeating what we've seen so it's a natural reaction. Why expect a kid that watches violent cop show after violent cop show to be a perfect angel?
Re:Newsflash: we do what we see (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm sure there were Bhutanese myths, stories or kabuki theatre with very violent scenes. Even the bible beaters complaining about trash and filth in modern media have to admit the old testament has some pretty gory stuff
Re:Newsflash: we do what we see (Score:3, Funny)
You obviously haven't sat infront of the TV for a while.
Hard to call (Score:5, Interesting)
Every week, the letters page carries columns of worried correspondence: "Dear Editor, TV is very bad for our country... it controls our minds... and makes [us] crazy. The enemy is right here with us in our own living room. People behave like the actors, and are now anxious, greedy and discontent."
Is this stupid? Funny? Bizarre? Remember that Bhutan does not follow the same societal traits we are accustomed to in the west. I'd be inclined to see this report in a different light for just that reason.
Not to say television is all good, but.... (Score:2, Interesting)
FWIW, I have not read the article, as this kind of voodoo sociology has never interested me. If someone who HAS read it feels that Slashdot put the wrong spin on it, please let me know, and I'll spend some time actually reading it.
Re:Not to say television is all good, but.... (Score:5, Insightful)
The Bhutanese government is now considering whether TV has a damaging effect on the people. It's still an open question. But you have to understand that TV has a much greater immediate impact on those people than we're accustomed to.
Kids there have started emulating their favorite stars because they treat the TV stars like they treat anyone else. They don't necessarily understand that TV is a caricature of real life. We understand that now; we now have filters in place that tell us that TV isn't real.
They also haven't gotten accustomed to advertisements. They assume that when a product makes people happy in an ad, it will make them happy, too. So they want more money to purchase that product. Maybe they don't have the means to get that product yet, so they steal. After all, isn't happiness the most important value?
Some people here may assume that this is a good thing. They're becoming capitalistic, and may become productive in the global economy. But that's not the way that people have to be. Our culture just has the means to project that way of life onto others. That doesn't mean that we should.
Re:Not to say television is all good, but.... (Score:4, Informative)
Dismissive without investigating it first. An educated way to think.
This concept isn't "voodoo" -- it has been around for at least 200 years. Probably longer. It used to be called the Werther's effect, and now it's called Social Proof. You can study it in a controlled environment, and easily predict the way 95% of humans will act. The basic idea behind Social Proof is that people look to their environment for clues as to how to behave, but more importantly, they look to the people in the environment that most closely resemble themselves. You can use this for ill or good -- marketers use it to sway your purchasing decisions, filmmakers use it to shock you into buying a ticket, psychologists use it to help people (mostly with phobias, as videos of people enjoying a feared situation can greatly influence people to overcome their phobia). It's how we model behavior. You can call it voodoo, but people put huge amounts of money into the concept, and get results so good that they keep putting money into it.
Re:Not to say television is all good, but.... (Score:3, Informative)
Apologies for responding to my own post, but just to provide some backup data, here's a link to a paper about the Werther Effect [idirect.com], with lots of studies cited. Anyway, I'm sure other people can post tons more or Google for it.
Reminds me of Fiji, 1995 (Score:5, Interesting)
But surely there must be more beneath the surface than blaming our beloved television? TV seems too simplistic of a cause and too easy of a scapegoat, much like rock music/Doom is blamed for corrupting our youth.
Fiji story:http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/347637.st
2 Pence (Score:3, Insightful)
When will we learn that we don't have freedom and are doomed to do what ever
(negative) thing we see on TV. Bullsh*t.
I really have to doubt that this article is truthful for a number of reasons.
According to the article the MIDDLE class citizen makes 1000 pounds a year. Just
the cable subscription would represent 5% of their income. The article later
states: "Almost 50% of the children watch for up to 12 hours a day." 50% of what??
The whole population? BS. They could never afford it. But if a culture is letting
ANY large amount of kids watch 12 hours of TV(out of a maybe 12-14 waking hours), rather
then say oh, I don't know, educate them, don't be surprised if it is a sh*twhole.
TV, is not crack cocaine. It is just entertainment. People used to sit and
listen to radio just like they watch TV and little Timmy didn't cut people
like pirates or shot-up banks like a cowboy.
For a change, take personal responsibility.
pff (Score:2)
I'm sure the people of Bhutan will see your recommendation and act accordingly from now on.
Most people have a capability to be rational, sensible beings. It's a capability that is not often used.
It wouldn't surprise me if TV was as addictive as crack cocaine. Try and take TV away from a child sometime.
Another Possibility (Score:2, Insightful)
Wow, this story is getting around (Score:2)
I kno
Re:Wow, this story is getting around (Score:5, Informative)
1) There is not a ban on television. Nor is the government considering one. Did you read the article? If you had, you might have noticed that it says ". . . in its haste to introduce TV, the government failed to prepare legislation. There is no film classification board or TV watershed in force here, no regulations about media ownership. Companies such as Star TV are free to broadcast whatever they want. Only three years after the introduction of cable did the government announce that a media act would be drafted."
2) Comparing Bhutan's government with the Taliban is completely and totally bogus. The Taliban took power violently and sustained their rule through violence, including public executions of "criminals" such as women who committed adultery. Bhutan was founded as a Buddhist refuge. Under the Taliban, living conditions in Afghanistan became notably worse.
Bhutan's monarchy, by contrast, was not "self-proclaimed". It was set up under British influence in 1907, as mentioned here [cia.gov] and here. [infoplease.com] That second source contains, among other things, this information: "Bhutan's third hereditary ruler, King Jigme Dorji Wangchuk (reigned 1953â"72), modernized Bhutanese society by abolishing slavery and the caste system, emancipating women, dividing large estates into small individual plots, and starting a secular educational system. Although Bhutan no longer has a Dharma Raja, Buddhist priests retain political influence. In 1969 the absolute monarchy gave way to a 'democratic monarchy.'"
What's more, the article we're discussing mentions that "[In] 1998 . . . King Jigme Singye Wangchuck announced he would give up his role as head of government and cede power to the national assembly. The people would be consulted about the drafting of a constitution. The process would complete Bhutan's transformation from monarchist Shangri-la into a modern democracy."
Listen, sounds like in balance they've been pretty good for the country. Given a choice between living in Bhutan today or Afghanistan-under-the-Taliban, I would take Bhutan in a heartbeat. The main fault of Bhutan's government seems to be that they're embracing foreign ways a bit too enthusiastically. Comparing them to the Taliban does them a disservice.
Kindly think twice before posting.
Four Years... (Score:5, Insightful)
no tv when i was a kid (Score:5, Interesting)
now i certainly played video games during that period so i wasn't completely immune to imitated violence completely, but i certainly kept out of trouble
TV rots the mind... specially in the crucial early years... if your typical day is get home watch 2-4 hours of TV than you are falling behind your potential...
crazy thing is now i use the internet like the TV. i have my "channels" (websites) that i check often, don't really stray that far. and i check them constantly even if nothing has changed. i waste so much time with the internet its stupid. don't get me wrong some things i do are impossible without the internet and when i do use it to research its fantastic...
so i think what's happened to TV will happen to the internet... most content in the hands of a few corporates and nothing really "on" even though we have tons of channels
Re:Rots the Mind? (Score:5, Interesting)
Watching Animal Planet is only marginally better than watching MTV. It's the pattern that matters. If you use a particular TV channel once to watch one program about a specific subject you are interested in, that is a good thing, be it Discovery, Fox or BBC. If you watch the same programs for hours every day, you are not learning anything, you are just a TV (Internet) junkie, admit it.
And the little interactivity that is present on the Internet doesn't matter that much. You could call to TV studio for ages and tell your opinion, or vote on some poll, or ask a question... Whatever. If you wrote an essay after reading some site (or watching TV), discussed it with your professor (teacher, parents, etc.), went to the library and got some books on this topic, that would mean your are actively learning. If not, then you are still just an information junkie using your TV and PC in absolutely the same way.
The good thing about TV is that you can abandon it altogether and escape its "evils". That's what I did, I don't have it, I don't watch it => good thing. The problem is that I can't do the same thing with computer, but having Internet access it's too easy to fall prey to TV-like content.
Random thoughts on Bhutan, TV, and Freedom (Score:5, Insightful)
I say let them make their mistakes, let them figure it out themselves, and let them enjoy the same measure of freedom every other nation in the world enjoys. (And hopefully a lot more than that enjoyed by North Korea, Cuba, Syria, etc.) Freedom has a price, but it's a price worth paying.
You are not very credible. (Score:3, Insightful)
pfff (Score:3, Insightful)
-- Dick Cavett
Television's fault? (Score:3, Interesting)
Correlation != Causation
So a rise in television use happens at the same time as a rise in crime. It doesn't necessarily follow that the first caused the second. There are alternate explanations that deserve at least a second or two of consideration before we blindly accept this one.
Maybe the rise in crime is causing the rise in television use? Escapism isn't all that unusual.
Or, it could be that a third event is the cause of both. Recently, political power in Bhutan has been shifting away from the monarchy into the hands of the elected parliment, especially since the democratic reforms of 1998. People are feeling more freedom. Only with self-delusion could one assume that the people limit their tests of this new "freedom" thing to legal ways. And who's to say that the Parliment is as efficient as the Monarchy was at running criminal justice?
I tend to lean towards this last theory, myself. The "television's fault" view implies an innocent human turned into a monster by evil technology, or evil western civilization. Point the finger anywhere but the actual person doing the murdering.
Not surprised (Score:5, Interesting)
There have been the hundreds of studies (laboratory experiments, field experiments, correlation surveys, longitudinal panel studies) all showing a link with viewed violence and violent tendencies.
Bhutan's experience has already been documented in studies in Canada and South Africa, showing that before TV and post exposure to one channel or multiple channels of TV the children in schools became more violent and the increase was in response to the dose (number of channels). (for notes see the book quoted below).
Whenever I hear "there is no proven link" I am always shocked by the extreme ignorance. Who said "the Truth is not as important as repetition"? Was it Goebbels or Stalin? Either way here are some quotes from the book, "Children & Television" 2nd edition, Barrie Gunter & Jill McAleer; Routledge. Chapter 7 pages 92,93...
rage against the machine says it best (Score:3, Interesting)
Bullet In The Head
This time the bullet cold rocked ya
A yellow ribbon instead of a swastika
Nothin' proper about ya propaganda
Fools follow the rules when the set commands ya
They said it was blue
When the boold was red
That's is how you got a bullet blasted through your head
Blasted through your head
Blasted through your head
I give a shout out to the living dead
Who stood and watched at the feds cold centralized
So serene on the screen
You was mesmerized
Cellular phones soundin' a death tone
Corporations cold
Turn ya to stone before you realize
They load the clip in omnicolor
They pack the 9, they fire it at prime time
Sleeping gas, every home was like Alcatraz
And mutha fuckas lost their minds
Just victims of the in-house drive-by
They say jump, you say how high
They load the clip in omnicolor
They pack the 9, they fire it at prime time
Sleeping gas, every home was like Alcatraz
And mutha fuckas lost their minds
No escape from the mass mind rape
Play it again jack and then rewind the tape
Play it again and again and again
Until ya mind is locked in
Believin' all the lies that they are tellin' ya
Buying all the products that they are selling ya
They say jump
Ya say how high
Ya brain dead
Ya gotta fuckin' bullet in your head
Just victims of the in-house drive-by
They say jump, you say how high
Ya standin' in line
Believin' the lies
Ya bowin' down to the flag
Ya got a fuckin' bullet in ya head
It's not only TV.. (Score:5, Insightful)
As the older (non-monetized) economy is disappearing there are many changes in people's roles and in the social hierarchy. Older political hierarchies are also changing as the King is moving the country (with much skill) toward democracy.
It's not just TV.
I wish them the best of luck; they are going to need it to keep their bearings in a more globalized world.
It's not like they have a lot of choice though. At the end of WWII there were three Buddhist kingdoms: Tibet, Sikkim, and Bhutan. Tibet has been absorbed by China; Sikkim was absorbed by India. Bhutan is the last one. If they are going to stay independent they need friends; and to have friends means that they need to trade with the outside world. It's a very special place - I hope that they can keep most of their culture while remaining independent.
Desensitizing Effects... (Score:5, Insightful)
Let me share a true anecdote: In my first year of college, I took a âoewestern traditionsâ class in which we were one day having a lively debate about the affects of TV/movie violence on society. There were the typical extreme liberals speaking out about how it had absolutely no affects, etc. And there were the typical extreme conservatives with the opposite view.
After a considerable amount of discussion, a young lady (19 or 20 year old) stood up and shared her personal experience on this topic. It turns out she grew up in the middle of no-where New Mexico (or somewhere - I forget exactly where) and there has no broad-cast television in the area, and her parents didnâ(TM)t get a satellite dish. So here whole life growing up, she had no exposure to TV or movies except 2 or 3 times when she was visiting her grandma or something like that. So she goes off to âoethe big cityâ for college, and gets a dorm-mate who watches TV a lot. The first evening in the room, she became entranced with what was happening in the show (some prime-time Cop show if I remember right) and sat and watched. She said that after only 10 minutes of viewing she felt âoeemotionally sickâ, and after about 30 minutes (after watching a few people get shot) she actually threw up! She then said that after living with her roommate for a few months, she only got slightly bothered by such scenes, and after a full year it didnâ(TM)t bother her at all.
I think this (along with all of the studies, etc.) is direct proof that exposure to scenes of violence is âoedesensitizingâ. Does it mean that watching TV will eventually turn her into a killer? Of course not. But it does mean that her âoepsycheâ no longer panics at the sight of violence, and I donâ(TM)t think that it would be too big of a stretch to say that somewhere in the deep recesses of her mind there is a conditioning that thinks assigns less of a âoebadness levelâ than it once did to acts of insult others, curse at others, slapping others, etc..
In the end, this same conditioning is happening to all of us. Luckily, most of us have a lot of counter-conditioning to keep our âoemoralsâ system on the side of still thinking treating someone badly is in fact bad. But letâ(TM)s face it, if we never saw someone strike out in anger, never heard anyone curse at someone else, wouldnâ(TM)t we really be less likely to do those things ourselves? Just like so many studies show that someone exposed to domestic violence as a kid is more likely to inflict it as an adult - our brains simply learn patterns of behaviors. Thatâ(TM)s why weâ(TM)re so good at becoming addicted to things.
Old old news (Score:4, Informative)
16 khz flyback noise -- violence ? (Score:4, Interesting)
but the recent introduction of TV sets themselves?
The flyback transformers in cheap TV sets tend to
make a very high-pitched whine (around 15.75 khz).
Most adults cannot hear this frequency, especially
if they have become deaf to it from a lifetime of
TV exposure. Those who
extremely irritating [1].
So, if you take an entire country of adults who've
retained the ability to hear above 15 khz, and now
expose them to constant loud subliminal noise from
cheap imported TV sets, it might very well stress
people out and cause violence and bad behavior
even if they only showed innocuous programming.
[1] Just search Google Groups for "flyback transformer"
+ words like irritating, annoying, etc.
What? (Score:3, Funny)
Such Nonsense (Score:3, Insightful)
But blaming TV is very elitist and one should never underestimate the human desire to perceive oneself as superior to others.
"TV violence = real violence" is complete crap (Score:4, Interesting)
ACLU quote: "Japanese TV and movies are famous for their extreme, graphic violence, but Japan has a very low crime rate -- much lower than many societies in which television watching is relatively rare."
The case of Bhutan almost certainly involves much deeper and more important social issues than cable TV.
Bhutan's culture (Score:5, Insightful)
The people are wonderful. Education is a top priority. It is a very peaceful society, but changing rapidly.
The temples do not allow photography inside for fear of providing outsiders of pictorial inventories of the priceless artifacts inside. In the previous year a group of Bhutanese bandits from the east looted a temple, killing the monks who did not escape. This would have been an unimaginable event only a few years ago. Desire for wealth obtainable by selling religious artifacts is overtaking the traditional values of the culture.
Opening a simple, stable, but closed society to western culture through the window of western media and commercial television is an unavoidable disaster. This simple Buddhist culture, with its sane attitude toward the human problem of desire, stands little chance of surviving the desire machine being unleashed there. Western media is the engine of materialism. I fear that western corporate monoculture will win over the minds of youth in a generation. An alternate form of human social existence will be lost.
Re:Bhutan's culture (Score:3, Interesting)
When some foreign students come to the US (Score:4, Insightful)
I have grown up in a culture that, to some degree, "understands" television. I know that both the WWF and the Presidential Debates are complete bullshit. I know I shouldn't trust or believe anyone on television (and many in "real" life). I am beginning to conclude that these traits are cultural and have little to do with intelligence.
Which means that Bhutan is screwed. I'd far rather see them explore the internet, because it is easier to realize that you are responsible for what you view.
-Paul Komarek
Correlation and Cause still Confusing? (Score:4, Interesting)
It says absolutely nothing.
The "TV breeds violence" myth is a religious cause. The faithful will repeat the mantra despite the mountains of evidence to the contrary.
All kidding aside... (Score:3, Interesting)
Any behavioural psychologist worth his or her salt should have read the the news that Bhutan was introducing cable tv to their society, gotten a grant and flown the fsck over there.
Point being, society is getting more violent on a day to day basis. Sure, society has always been violent (and one could make the case that we're only more informed about it due to mass media), but I think (or at least pretend to see) that it is getting slightly more so.
Now is that due to tv, as Micheal Moore would have it (and he does make a pretty compelling case), or is that total bollocks?
Well, we can all philosophise, but we've missed a perfect chance to get some real, valid answers. Which, it strikes me, is kind of stupid of us, to miss this oppertunity.
Not Just TV: High-Tech TV (Score:4, Interesting)
We in American and Europe have had decades to become inoculated to television, as the crude technology and sanitized programming of TV's early days developed into the high technology and low art seen today. I can imagine, however, that for someone living in an insular society like Bhutan's, flipping on a set and seeing what's broadcast now would be like getting hit on the head with a brick.
No doubt there are many factors in Bhutan's social change, but I'm sure that television is an important one.
Heroin in Bhutan has been a prob for a while (Score:3, Insightful)
And increased usage and addiction in the country. Even in Afganistan after the Taliban instituted a ban on poppy growning (and was quite successful BTW) there was still a significant unreported underclass of addicts. Even UN drug documents find no comprehensive numbers on addicts in countries like Bhutan and the Maldives.
The difference now: instant media coverage (i.e. television), perhaps?
It is quite possible that they turned on the light for the first time and didn't like what they saw. So instead of considering that things might have been this bad for a while, they blame the one who suggested turning on the lights in the first place.
And then it comes down to who to blame: those who produce it, those who make it available, those who consume it, or those who make it a crime. Everyone has their hands dirty, but not enough to take the heat.
Re:It's just us (Score:2)
Re:It's just us (Score:2)
tho you certainly proved your point that there's no intelligent life on your planet by switching your and you're
Re:Oh, give me a break (Score:5, Insightful)
If you came and found a strange man teaching your kids to punch each other, or trying to sell them all kinds of products, you'd kick him right out of your house, but here you are; you come in and the TV is on, and you don't think twice about it."--Jerome Singer
Re:Oh, give me a break (Score:5, Insightful)
Do you say that because it is true, or because you want it to be true?
As much as you (or I) may not want to admit that people are effected by television, vidio games, etc, the evidence on the contrary needs to be considered. What if what we are is shaped in part by what happens around us? Should we ignore the possibility of any negative (or positive) affect that entertainment has? Maybe we should be more careful about what we are entertained by.
Oh, and by the way, I do play some FPS games, but I am not going to claim that because I don't want those games to have an effect on me, that they don't. The possibility does exist.
Re:Oh, give me a break (Score:4, Insightful)
I've seen, over and over, in treatment situations, in teaching, and in real life, incidents where people find subtle ways to act out what they see on TV or watch in movies or play in games. People that watch shows like (and this is just an example here), "The Waltons," or "ST: The Next Generation," where people usually find peaceful and healthy ways to work out their problems are much more creative with their conflict resolution skills.
I remember one time, specifically (and there were others, this just stands out strongly in my mind) where I was working with someone with a group of teens in an overnight setting. The other adult had worked with them to pick out videos to watch. Everyone was quite cooperative up through watching the video, which was some type of ultimate fighting championship. Once that video was over, the teens were no longer cooperative and argued with us on every little point. This continued for the rest of the night.
I can only wonder, when watching one video can disrupt a group for the whole night, what watching violence over and over and over on TV, movies, and in games, does to a person's way of thinking.
As I said, I've noticed that people who watch shows that use other ways to resolve conflicts tend to be more creative in solving disagreements. We don't just "turn off" one style of thinking and "turn on" another because we're watching TV or playing a game. Think about an athlete who trains over and over so their reflexes are fast. They're burning the habit into their neurons so they can perform an action quickly, without thinking about it. When the situation comes up, they do it without thinking.
The same happens in behavior. If we keep seeing violent or disrespectful behavior used in interatctions with people, it becomes expected and habitual. We are the sum total of all our thoughts, words, and actions. The more our head is filled with violent thoughts, the more likely we are to act in a manner close to violence and with less respect for others.
Re:Oh, give me a break (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Oh, give me a break (Score:5, Interesting)
That was not his point. The point was that most people are not as self aware as they think they are. Children especially are often unaware of their motivations or reasons for their actions, but most people who don't spend much time in introspection are subject to not understanding or recognizing their own behaviour.
Re:Oh, give me a break (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Oh, give me a break (Score:5, Interesting)
The road to television in Western society was an evolutionary process, and people's mechanisms for dealing with the new media likewise had a chance to incrementally develop. Not only that, but here in the 21st century, we've been part of a television-saturated culture for our entire lives and have reasonably developed very personal, robust and informed means of coping (e.g. media cynicism). So our relationship with TV is quite exceptional and particular to ourselves, and is certainly not a good barometer of the medium's "innate" effect on an arbitrary civilization.
Given that, it very possible that TV's influence on the human psyche is an inherently destructive thing, and that we have simply developed defenses strong enough to glean the good from it.
Re:Oh, give me a break (Score:2)
Are you implying that someone with the intelligence of a WWE should be taken seriously by anyone for any reason?
everybody == me (Score:5, Insightful)
You are assuming everyone has the same frame-of-mind/state-of-mind/mental capacity/etc as you. There are people smarter than you, and there are people of less intelligence compared to you.
I think this is a common incorrect assumption. Eg.
You do not represent everyone else, and you may not represent the common person in Bhutan either. Plus, society does have a responsibility, I believe, to make some attempt at protecting the impressionable ( eg. kids, mentally incompetant )from acts expressing moral standards that have been found by that society to be below what they think is appropriate.
Step out of yourself for a minute, and understand that your moral standards, and way of life is not acceptable to everyone else.
I bet you think that none of that tv you watch on television "affects" you, right? Most of us do, and I'd bet we're wrong.
Re:Oh, give me a break (Score:5, Insightful)
That's why we can be much more cynical regarding stimuli like television. We had more exposure, and more experience, and learn to filter it with much more skepticism, both personally and collectively.
A culture exposed to new influences with no period of adaptation can be much more vulnerable, just like people (recent immigrants are a prime target for scams, for example). When information is precious, and you have so little, you tend to take it at face-value more easily.
TV can be a powerful new influence, because it "trains" people on how to react to the rest of the new stuff.
Humans are creatures of imitation. Our behavior is defined by models we build on our minds from observation and education. When we don't have a given model, and we don't have enough experiences to observe, we can rely a lot on fictional narratives as models. Books, television, etc.
Your model, your expectations, how you react for the first time on a court of law, on a hospital, on a date, are heavily influenced by what you have heard from hearsay, what you have read, what you have seen on TV.
Consider that these people have no parents, friends, or general culture sharing experiences from modern societies. TV is their main source of knowledge such as "this is how you react when you are robbed" and "this is how you react when you rob someone".
It won't be as bad in a few years, I'm sure, but I wouldn't be surprised if TV is making it worse for a while.
Re:Oh, give me a break (Score:3, Insightful)
Who's to say that we're really any more immune to this sort of influence, and that we haven't just written off the losses?
Re:Oh, give me a break (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Frontline ran a story about this a while back (Score:5, Interesting)
Also, here is the link, well, linked: Frontline: World [pbs.org] Also, it has the actual video on the site, as most recent Frontline episodes are, and is worth watching.
Also, for those who have never seen Frontline, or Frontline: World for that matter, I highly recommend it as one of the last bastions of extremely high quality programming, particularly in the realm of journalism which has been so much under assault by the need to have a story make money rather than inform.
Re:Somewhat off topic (Score:3, Insightful)
My big thing is: Advertisers get millions of dollars by saying TV affects (buying) behavior. Most current films and a lot of TV shows have product placement to sell new product. This means that someone is paying money for the show to affect (buying) behavior. But if someone follows what they see on TV and hi