One way to measure how television influences the way we live would be to find a community (perhaps a town of at least 1,000) where people are not exposed to television. We could watch these people very closely to see how their lives differ because they lack television. But finding such a community is nearly impossible, for there is hardly a place in the United States that is without television. Even in the most remote and mountainous areas at least 90 percent of the households have television. Since there is no city that would suit our experiment in tubelessness, perhaps we could look for 1.000 average people who don't watch television. But since these people are such a minority, they can hardly be considered average. To measure the effect of television is indeed difficult precisely because television has become so much a part of ordinary life in America.
One experiment on the absence of television was conducted in Germany, where 184 volunteer television viewers were paid to give up TV for one year. At first the volunteers reported that they spent more time with their children, went to movies more frequently, read and played more games, and visited friends and relatives more than they did before they gave up television.
But within a few weeks things began to change. Even though the people were paid not to watch, one man dropped out after only three weeks. No one lasted more than five months. Why? Tension, fighting, and quarreling increased among families without television. When the experiment was over and the television sets were back on, these effects disappeared.
For some television is like a drug. Habitual viewers are addicted to television and need their daily fix in order to get along. When television is not available, the addicted become nervous, restless, and irritable.
