Medical experts claim that watching television makes people physically passive and thus more prone to health problems. Perhaps worse is that television makes people mentally passive. I myself probably spent my growing years, the seventies and eighties, watching too much tv. Back then television was "worthwhile," but even so I should have used that time for something more productive. Today, broadcast tv is just visual sludge; phony "reality shows," cryptofascist cop shows, sitcoms that aren't actually funny, and trashy singing and dancing contests. I only watch tv when there's something good on PBS.
Some people have been so dulled by television that they no longer know the difference between fact and fiction. Michael Moor pointed out in "Bowling for Columbine," that Fox News, and all of Murdoch owned media, is aimed to keep its viewers in a constant state of panic if not hysteria. The problem is that much of the other media has followed Murdoch's lead. As a result, the corporate media finds it easy to mislead the public with a steady stream of falsehoods and deceptions. Television really turned out to be the Idiot Box after all.
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