(Semi-President Butch’s total lack of affect upon hearing the news of 9/11.)
So a few VERY bright Cornell professors did some statistical studies and came up with a set of interesting results regarding the literal epidemic of autism in the so–called “developed” world and television usage in homes. Read it here if you so desire…it’s pretty heavy going… and about the authors here if you wish.
Long story short? They found that rising autism rates positively coincided with rising TV watching rates in a number of states. There are a lot of ifs, ands and buts about the study…it is truly impossible to ascertain the real hours spent watching TV by a sample taken over a broad range of subjects, let alone young children, for example…so they used previous studies that equate precipitation averages with TV watching rates plus cable and satellite subscription percentages to come to their conclusions. The study makes sense overall.
Read on for more.
There is a good article about this study in Slate magazine…TV Really Might Cause Autism…that pretty fairly sketches out the results of the analysis and some possible loopholes, but to me the most interesting part of the whole thing (And the proof of the pudding as far as I am concerned…other than common sense, of course, to which I will refer later on in this piece.) is the immediate and truly bizarre reaction of the major media.
Under the aegis of “TIME IN PARTNERSHIP WITH CNN” (And you should ALWAYS be careful of what systems like those try to foist off on you as “news.”) you can read a classic defensive hit piece that is oh so fairly titled A Bizarre Study Suggests That Watching TV Causes Autism…this before the damned thing is ever officially published. I am sure that if the study does not sink from public view quickly the other bastions of the hypno-media will soon chime in against it as well.
I mean…it’s just business, right?
Nuthin’ personal.
Bada-BING!!!
Now for the common sense.
For literally millions of years human children have grown to adulthood without much in the way of passive intake of information.
They played. They ate and slept and went to school. They read…some more, some less. They listened to tales. They ADVENTURED. And in all of those activities, they were to a great degree involved in the action. Reading…even listening to stuff being read or learning in school…demands a certain level of action. Of participation. Translation from the word to the inner image. They are ALIVE.
But watching TV?
To young, unformed minds especially?
TV, with its barrage of undifferentiated images?
Cartoon characters for a few minutes, then an ad for poisonous cereals, then one for poisonous hamburgers, then a blurb for Mommy about the hottest thing ever crime show, then back to the most often quite senseless (as in making no real sense at all), Scooby-Doo/Spongepants Whatsisname empty bullshit tranquilizer dart TV…???
The child’s mind simply gives up. And (s)he stares.
No affect. (In psychology, affect is the scientific term used to describe a subject’s externally displayed mood. Wikipedia)
Blunted affect. (Blunted affect is the scientific term describing a lack of emotional reactivity on the part of an individual. Wikipedia)
The first doctor to use the word `schizophrenia”, Eugen Bleuler:
Blunted Affect
Loosening of Associations
Ambivalence
Autism
The main point that I have been trying to make on left blogworld for almost two years now with my NEWSTRIKE!!! and MEDIASTRIKE!!! ideas is that watching TV short-circuits the normal perceptual and critical processes of the human mind, and that the whole media system is set up to SUPPORT that action.
THAT is why TV advertising works so well.
There is no affect.
Only effect.
“I’m suddenly hungry for some chemical-laced, fat soaked poisons. MMMMMM!!!!”
“Y’know, Mabel…that there Preznit is makin’ some good sense. Pass the Fritos. wouldja? Nuclear war? Mebbe it’s whut’s S’POSE to happen. News is over. Time to go to bed. `Night now…”
“YAWN…”
This “autism” thing?
What if it goes right on up the age scale?
Huh?
Kids can be “a little” autistic, right? There are degrees. They have even invented new names for the problem. ADD. Asperger’s Syndrome. (Steven Wright’s HDADD. The kid doesn’t pay attention to much, but when he does it’s it’s in some serious Hi-Def.)
Where does “autism” end and not giving a shit begin?
When the carbines come out of the school lockers? “Looka HERE, Ralphie. It’s just like the VIDEO GAME!!!”
Where do childhood diseases of the mind, body and soul end and adult diseases begin?
“Nothin’ on the news again tonight, George. Jes’ 600,000 dead Iraqis and Preznit Butch stayin’ the old course. Who’s on Letterman?”
Are the solid 38% ButchCo voters clinically insane?
Suffering from blunted affect?
Certainly the words “Loosening of Associations” and “Ambivalence” would apply to most of the voting population of the United States.
Are we ALL fucking crazy?
Would ButchCo even EXIST without the cooperation of a media system that spreads the word/image viral epidemic of not giving a good shit about ANYTHING?
And most importantly…because I am sure that a large percentage of the people reading this little missive are of the “Oh. Yeah. Not ME, though.” persuasion…
How much TV do YOU watch?
How “autistic” are YOU?
Where do YOU draw the line?
Hmmmm…???
Severe deficits in social interaction and communication?
“Oh, man…not the KIDS again!!!”
Or “I really don’t want to talk to anybody. Leave me the fuck ALONE!!!”
An extremely limited range of activities and interests.
Off to work, back home, TV, sleep, back to work…fix the house on the weekend, TV, eat, sleep, here comes Monday again…
“Repetitive, stereotyped behaviors?”
Maybe…working and voting for Democratic candidates who have for over 50 years either OVERWHELMINGLY supported the status quo that quite plainly has gotten us into our present state of near collapse or lost big time to those who do?
Seriously paying attention to a mass media that has been complicit in the takeover of America by fascists like Cheney and Rumsfeld since before the crack of the rifle faded from human hearing in Dealy Plaza?
Hmmmmm…???
“But…y’ gotta LIVE here!!! Can’t pay attention to EVERYTHING!!! It’s just too confusing.”
Isn’t that quite possibly what is being formulated in the being of an autistic child?
Autistic America. Look away.
Abu Ghraib.
600,000 dead Iraqis so’s we can drive Escalades and eat Greaseburgers.
Opposition politicians who support the people they oppose.
Look away.
Too confusing.
Just what they want you to do.
Were the slaves who survived slavery “autistic”?
Almost HAD to be.
Either that or spiritual geniuses.
You either look at it and get so angry that you risk almost certain death or…you don’t look at it.
Autism.
It’s what’s for dinner.
American cuisine, 2006.
YUM!!!
Eat up.
There’s plenty more where THAT came from.
Or…
NEWSTRIKE!!!
and
MEDIASTRIKE!!!
The only true revolt left open to us.
Disarmed and disenfranchised?
There is still INFOSTRIKE!!!
VAYA!!!
Heal thyself.
TURN THE SHIT OFF AND WAKE THE FUCK UP, GODDAMNIT!!!
AG
Unless of course…you just don’t care…
AG
I have been thinking for a long time about the effects of television on the academic performance of American children.
I get soooo sick of being blamed for why children don’t learn – schools are reflections of society and society watches too much television. That isn’t to say that schools are blameless, but they are institutions filled with humans (adults and children) who spend their free time watching the boob tube.
I have to go back to grading papers, but this has touched on very sore spot for me.
A damning I will gratefully accept.
AG
Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television
by Jerry Mander some years ago.
I would highly recommend a read of Mander’s book, as it complements AG’s diary quite well.
For An Excellent Review of Jerry Mander’s Four Arguments For The Elimination Of Television, see link
Y’know what most amazes me about this problem, NDD?
How much it mirrors chemical dependencies.
Now almost every junkie I have ever known…and believe me, I have known many, including myself to some degree at one time…has had enough smarts to “know” that what they were doing was bad for them.
But they did it anyway.
So they both knew and did NOT know. Or alternatively…they had several personalities, each with a certain “knowledge”, each with different needs.
Admittedly, I knew mostly a fairly high class of junkies…artists and fine craftsmen, plus a sprinkling of academics and intellectuals. (I use the term “junkie” here not only in regard to heroin, by the way. The naive idea that the use of drugs of ANY sort “raises one’s consciousness” in some long-term effective way is enough for me.)
But here we are on a left-wing blogosphere that I would bet you represents at least the top 10 percentile of IQ and/or achievement in the population of the U.S…well, maybe not dKos anymore, but still…and yet I have encountered a truly MASSIVE resistance to these ideas over the past year and a half or so.
OK…sometimes I am a little abrasive. But truth be told, I was NOT abrasive when I first started saying these things. It was only after I encountered that kind of resistance that I began to think that maybe the resistance needed to be worn down by a little abrasion of one kind or another.
Some shocks in order to change the channel, as it were.
I don’t know…
It seems SO plain to me.
Turn the shit off and get on with your life.
But NOOOOOOO….
So it goes.
It’s a big tree, but I WILL keep on chopping.
Later…
AG
Arthur, I started to comment on the ways in which Bush does not fit the criteria for autism, and say some things about television watching in childhood, which I’d like to see greatly reduced.
Then I stopped, because the larger issues of your diary intruded: I am offended.
I have three things to say about your diary:
1. Don’t use any form of mental illness as an insult. Autism (and any other form of mental illness) is not a political view point. It should never be a convenient term to apply as an insult to people or political actions you dislike. It is bigotry to imply that people are mentally ill who have been persuaded into political actions that you dislike. It makes mental illness an “acceptable” pejorative against people and viewpoints that you disagree with. If you doubt that you are using autism in this fashion, try substituting some of the offensive terms directed toward persons of color or of religion in some of your statements above. By using autism, or any mental illness in this fashion, you are putting down people and families where autism is a real and present challenge. That’s what I expect from the likes of Limbaugh and O’Reilly. I am surprised to see you write this way.
2. Correlation is not causation. Repeat. When two things go together, it does not mean that one of those things causes the other thing. You know this. The study identifies a correlation. That is all that it does. The people who wrote the article, and the many media outlets that are blowing it out of proportion, are making a typical causal inference, which the evidence simply does not warrant. It is equally likely, for example, that autistic children are drawn by the nature of their characteristics, to watch more television than ordinary children.
3. You don’t know enough about autism. Autism is a serious disorder, as some of the information you quote above notes. Yet you are not treating it as a serious disorder, and I see no sense in which you have an understanding of autism in the real lives of people who live with it. It is not a temporary thing that can be changed by shutting of the television. It is not something that only afflicts families of one political perspective.
Arthur, I’m a psychologist and I do research on kids who have psychological disorders. I also have extensive training in statistical methods. This study is a good statistical piece, but it says little about autism, and nothing at all about politics. The media reports of the study, as is too typical, go for the more extreme interpretations rather than more restrained ones. I’m frankly surprised that you were drawn in by the hoopla.
I do not care if you are a “psychologist” or not, Kidspeak.
Sorry, but in point of fact your membership in the fraternity makes me take everything that you say with at least a certain grain of salt.
I mean.,..the mental health establishment here in America sure has done a fine job, hasn’t it? Look around. Sure are a lot of unhappy children on psychotropic drugs, eh? Do you really think that is WORKING?
You say “It is bigotry to imply that people are mentally ill who have been persuaded into political actions that you dislike.”
Bullshit.
In my own view of the world, “mental illness” is what causes and perpetuates “war.” And further, the “mentally ill” with whom I have political beefs have largely been CREATED BY THE SOCIETY.
I MEAN to insult the society. It has gone…forgive the layman’s language, O educated one…fucking nuts. And I no more blame the 600,000 dead in Iraq or the millions of wasted lives in the ghettos of America on themselves than I do the essentially well-meaning and totally turned off right-wing voters who have been hypnotized into believing the BushCo myth of America.
You say “Correlation is not causation.” Fine. I agree. Let’s have MORE studies, not hit pieces in the hypno-media.
And do not mistake my use of the broad idea of “autism” as a metaphor for the society to mean that I think that everyone who votes for Butch is in some way “autistic.” To tell you the truth, I mistrust the entire umbrella diagnosis.
More later, if you are so inclined. Gotta go to work now.
AG
I see little point in discussing this further with you, Arthur. When you start tossing out comments about medication and the mental health establishment, I start thinking about prevalence rates for mental health problems in children vs. percent of children who have access to any kind of mental health services vs. how many children have prescriptions for meds given annually.
There is little use, however, in discussing those issues with someone who discounts what I say – it makes me feel that you are in effect saying that you cover your ears when I speak.
And that wasn’t my concern with your diary, anyway. You can write of the stupidity of war, of the mindlessness of going along with leaders who take us into war, and of the manipulative and terrible quality of television. And I will agree with you.
However, I just do not want mentally ill children, nor adults, nor their families, see mental illness linked causally, or metaphorically with that discussion.
No one has yet mentioned “brains” or “neurons” here, but brains may have something to do with autism.
This is far from being the first report of structural abnormalities —
“I never watch TV.” And I don’t. But I get on the computer and blog or play sudoko and then I will go with my daughter for some entertainment to the boats where they have video games only you occasionally get some money back instead of putting money in all the time! I have thought that this behavior is not “normal”! I.e. it is not productive and not sane enough, but it is considered normal by a large number of people. But it doesn’t connect with others, not even the blogging. I get a momentary feeling of connection if I get a response to a comment, but, mostly, I have no real good feeling of the total person with whom I am jerkily conversing. (Except for a few, like Carnacki!) The community feeling can be writ large or a very small moment on the blogs, but can we build on it? Could we actually do something that matters for all of us? I know that we are desparately trying to elect dems or anybody but repubs (but not Lieberman) at the moment, but now that our whole constitution has been used as wiping paper by the repubs are we marching? Are we declaring ourselves as opposed to said wiping? Are we moving away from the keyboard into the streets? Is it possible that we are as frozen as Bush was in that school room?
Is it possible that we are as frozen as Bush was in that school room?
Now that is one powerful question.
First, to imply that someone who doesn’t tip or rec you simply doesn’t care about your ‘issue’ is the height of arrogance. But, you already know that, so you must have said that simply to be abrasive. That kinda sucks, IMO, but I could forgive that if this diary were not premised on unbelievably ignorant and stupid junk ‘science’.
Second, using autism as some sort of catch-all to promote your idea is hopeless and helpless destruction in the name of trying to get to something better, sort of like the rationale for the Iraq war that was perpetrated on the American public. Hey, if we just blow some stuff up indiscriminately over there, it will make everything all better, right?
Third, I disagree with the premise that in order to save ourselves we must become ignorant of what is on television by shutting it off completely. Baby and the bathwater, dude. There is good and bad in everything. Control, limitation, supervison and involvement by parents is the best way to use television as a tool for betterment of children’s lives and our own. I agree that dumping a child in front of a TV for hours on end and not limiting or controlling or participating in TV time is damaging, just like leaving children to ‘play’ in the street for hours on end with no parental supervison is destructive. But the fault, dear AG lies in not in the TV’s, but in ourselves. To suggest otherwise is is to place your argument squarely with the anti-technologists, and is akin to the argument that since the saxophone is a relatively modern technological creation (1840’s), it is not really a good instrument, and that the playing of it and listening to it has corrupted music itself and all those who indulge in such music. As you know (though some may not), the saxophone was once a popular ‘boogeyman’ symbolically used to smear the jazz idiom among those who objected to such ‘raw and uncontrolled expression’. It was blamed for drug use, wild sex and general debauchery, and yes, even mental illness among the youth of the day. Be afraid, be very afraid of that saxophone music.
I use my television carefully, and did use it carefully when raising my child. If you want to rail against the general quality of what passes for entertainment, or you want to rail against propaganda ‘news’ shows, or discuss the real science about how the mind interacts with television, or which programs on TV are worth watching, or not, I’ll be with you. But screaming fake science diatribes just doesn’t get you anywhere in my book. I believe you can do better than this diary. I know it, because I’ve seen it.
You write:
“To imply that someone who doesn’t tip or rec you simply doesn’t care about your ‘issue’ is the height of arrogance.”
Loosen up.
It was a joking reference to lack of affect.
As for the rest…on the evidence of my own observations and experiences, I am CONVINCED that watching TV has psychotropic properties. NEGATIVE psychotropic properties, given the content of most TV programming and commercials.
Watch it at your own risk.
And call out “fake science” any time you want.
I do.
Do you imbibe the drugs pushed by our medical establishment?
Any of them?
THAT’S “fake science.”
BET on it.
This study?
An interesting look at possible effects of TV watching. One that I have observed…I tend to use the word “catatonic” when describing rapt junk TV watchers, but autistic might be an applicable substitute given common American English usage…over and over again.
It caught my eye.
And then the REAL “over the top” reactions to it…AND to this diary…caught my eye even more.
It touched a nerve in the Great Media Beast. Reason ENOUGH to give it an unprejudiced look as far as I am concerned.
We shall see…
Or we shall not.
The corporate/academic complex…which is owned by and allied with the same interests that own Big Media…will likely squash it anyway.
Interesting how widely the reactions to it varied on the web.
And the passion of the attackers as well.
Interesting.
So it goes.
AG
Catatonic is different from autistic. Catatonic I can see, brain-washed I can see, autistic? Definitely not. To those who have a loved one or a friend who is autistic, your diary is, at least, insensitive. To claim that TV-induced hypnosis causes autism is to ignore the real evidence of what may cause autism. I’ve seen jazz music induce certain mental states, too, but to call that manic-depression would be to both slander the positive force that some good jazz can be and to denigrate the suffering of a certain class of mentally ill people.
I would tend to believe that since the rise of TV coincides exactly with the explosion of designer chemistry products being introduced into the home and all around us in the ‘natural’ environment, that the evidence that some of these chemicals cause brain damage in the developing fetus or in the infant is a much more reasonable correlative conclusion to draw. There is real evidence that many autistics have organic brain defects. I could possibly be convinced that the chemicals used in contructing TV sets could be part of the problem for those people who sit inches away from the TV while it is hot from electrical resistance inside the components. So, when you show me evidence that the prospective mother simply watching TV causes brain damage in fetuses, I’ll take you seriously about your claim that TV causes autism.
Watch TV at your own risk? Yes. Choose what to watch carefully and consciously tune out commercials, muting them and looking away? Yes. Change the channel and refuse to watch the rest of your “favorite” show if you catch an ad that is egregiously bad? Yes. I always do, and so does everyone I have influence over. It has always been that way in my house and it will always be that way. I turn deceptive or subliminal ads into a disincentive to watch the channel or the show. I don’t watch ‘shows’ much anyway. When I do, it’s on dvd MINUS commercials. I don’t get to participate in gossip about the latest episode, but that doesn’t bother me in the slightest.
And yes, on the rare occasion that I am ill, depending on the illness, I feel that it is helpful to carefully use certain prescription medications. If, say, I have a nasty flu that leads to an intractable upper respiratory bacterial infection that causes my bronchioles to fill up with fluid that makes it difficult to breathe, I will take an antibiotic. They really do work on some of those bugs, you know. When I get a pinched nerve in my back (the result of an old weight-lifting injury – yeah I know, how stupid can you be, but I was young and vain and wanted to get muscles for the chicks) I will take a muscle relaxer. It really helps dissolve the muscle spasms that go along with pinched nerves and gets me back up on my feet quicker and and with less suffering. …
To throw out all the advancements of modern medicine would be foolish. Go to doctors and take medicine with extreme caution? Yes. Die of pneumonia because I refuse to take an antibiotic? I think not.
The trouble with your over the top pronouncements is that you preach that only the most extreme action has any validity. And you think that in order to convince people of your opinion, you have to shout louder and louder at them. You said so in another comment in this diary. It seems two-faced for you to praise the intelligence of the community and then resort to shouting at us.
Since I’ve now completed a study that shows an anecdotal statistical correlation between hangnails leading to infection and death and being shouted at by unreasonable people on soapboxes with no idea of what they’re talking about, I think it’s time to call for an
AG STRIKE!
Maybe I’ll be throwing out some good stuff with the bad, but hey it’s worth it in this case, right? I mean, why bother trying to discriminate between helpful and hurtful shouting. After all, it only takes one infected hangnail…….
AG STRIKE!
the tv certainly has dumbed-down americans etc.,
I remember a counselor telling my alcoholic ex that copping out in front of the tv was just as bad as hiding in the bottle. And looking back, we use to fight almost as hard over the remote as we did over him drinking. I was trying to turn the tv off so we could talk. Hmmm…
This is an insult to all autistics.
Bush is PSYCHOTIC not autistic…
🙁