Just say no

Until last week, I lived alone in my room, typing out pages and pages for a seemingly endless barrage of assignments. That is, until I was reintroduced to that devil in a box of glass and traded my soul for MTV, Fox News and "American Idol."\nAfter what felt like a mere 10 minutes, four hours had passed, and my blank Word document was like a mirror of my inner self: devoid of meaning, purpose and form. I could've wept, but Conan O'Brian was wrestling the Crocodile Hunter, while some model was begging me to buy a new Mustang or drink Miller Light ... I can't remember which. \nHeavy in my hand was the remote control, but it was the television that was controlling me.\nThe Center for Research on the Effects of Television at Cornell University has divided the effects of television into two categories: direct and indirect. Direct effects include increased tendency towards violence and insensitivity to the suffering of others. Indirect effects include lower reading scores, obesity and attention deficit disorders.\nWhile researchers have yet to come to a consensus on the connection of television violence to aggressive tendencies, there's widespread agreement that the use of TV as a means of escape has become more common during the last 50 years.\nAccording to the American Academy of Pediatrics, regular to excessive exposure to television results in poor brain development because of lack of interaction between the viewer and the TV. Researchers at Harvard Medical School found that video addiction is a "primary factor of ADHD in children."\nThe human body burns more calories during sleep than while watching TV. Studies at Johns Hopkins, the National Institutes of Health and the Center for Disease Control have determined that TV is the "primary cause of obesity," which in turn results in diseases, including diabetes and hypertension. \nSo why, then, given all this research on the horrors of television, is it still so popular? \nParents use it as a baby-sitter because it's easy and cheap, then complain that their kids don't do anything but plug into the tube. They teach early on that TV is a perfectly acceptable drug. It's usually on during family dinners, stifling even the most basic human contact, even during commercials.\nBut it's more than that. Before I had a television in my room, people would look at me like some sort of criminal if I hadn't seen "The OC." Television is so much a part of our culture that to not watch it is to be ostracized from the community. We're all tools of "The Man," sucked nightly into that vacuum tube of other people's opinions, advertisements and values. Just ask yourself when was the last time you finished a book, and when was the last time you finished a movie. It's no surprise that many people's "favorite books" have recently been adapted to film.\nTelevision is an easy escape; it's a drug like marijuana or alcohol that brings you to a level of pseudo-consciousness. You're only barely aware of the world around you as you absorb hour after spirit-crushing hour of mindless drivel.\nWe've replaced reality with reality TV, we've come to expect depressingly poor journalism, and corporate media is nothing more than a silencing of the masses.\nWhere religion left off, the power of celebrity has taken over. What does it say about our society if the best social commentary is four animated kids and a talking Christmas poo? We should be interacting with society, not having society defined by shows.\nSo what can we do? Turn it off, and pick up a book. It's cold outside but not at the gym. We complain incessantly about nothing ever being on TV anyway, so stop looking.