Back in the far past, when we humans first evolved, we started out as hunter-gatherers, as nomads. A few dozen millennia later, the first humans became farmers. They became cultivators and settled down to build great cities. Even then they continued to travel across the vast world. More recently we have ventured across the seas and have started travelling across space. Unfortunately a sizeable portion of the human race has given up the hereditary instinct to travel and move. They have started to live completely sedentary lifestyle and have restricted not only their bodies, but also their minds. They are of course slaves of the television.
Over the past century the television has proved itself to be quite effective at restricting the human mind and body. For all its virtues of instant and widespread communication, it has been utterly unable to shed this vice. A television takes a perfectly intelligent human being and force-feeds him a stream of “programming content” decided not by the viewer, but by the businessmen in control. If the visitor does not find something that he likes, he simply watches something that he does not like, and later tells his friends how bad the programme was. He cannot turn off the television for the simple reason that it has already captured and immobilized his mind. This immobilization keeps a person from doing something worthwhile and instead forces him to do something that is more often than not, useless.
This effect can be seen quite obviously in society. Before the television became all powerful, families would spend the evening meal around the dining room table, talking about what had happened to them throughout the day. Now those same families are all too happy to eat before the television in complete silence, while the television does all the talking. Not too long ago, the majority of Bengali college students talked of mainly three things: studies, politics and cricket. Now studies have gone out the window, politics have somehow disappeared and cricket has taken a back seat. Instead, the latest music video and the latest episode of the most favourite soap opera has become the talking point; once again thanks to the television.
Time and time again the television has been called the “idiot box” and without reason. True, there is a certain amount of worthwhile programmes to be seen. But to actually choose those particular channels and ignore the numerically superior other “entertainment” channels takes a certain degree of will power unavailable to most. We are kept glued to our seats with our eyes glued to the television. Our minds are thus fed essentially the same ideas and visions of violence, obscenity and social misconceptions over and over again until they are firmly ingrained in our psyche. If the television is good at anything, it is brainwashing.
Unlike other forms of communication like books and even the Internet, the television removes all desires to actively search for information. Instead our brains take in everything and anything that is served on the television’s platter. Often the results can be quite disastrous leading to anything from complete addiction in children and adults alike to extremely aggressive behaviour in teenagers and even shootings in schools. The collective result is a society where people do not think for themselves, but rather believe blindly what is shown and told to them. All the while the advertisers and channel owners are going laughing all the way to the bank.
There is more at stake here than just our electricity bills and students’ grades. The greater percentage of the human race is being turned from a race of explorers, adventurers and thinkers to a breed of well-grown couch potatoes. While the majority of the human population sits safely glued to the television, society as a whole is degrading. Everything from our concepts of beauty and attractiveness to who we want to lead us is quite simply being doctored. And the television is merely the means to do it. Once more it all boils down to a matter of choice. If we choose to accept this immobilization, we become a planet of brain-washed zombies. If not, then we travel an unknown path, just as we have been doing ever since we stood upright on the plains of Africa.