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TV Conversation Experiment



“I was born in a house with the television always on.” - Talking Heads

Have you ever tried engaging in a serious conversation that requires heavy original thought while you and/or the person you are talking to are watching television? It’s very difficult to maintain your train of thought, isn’t it? Even if neither of you is really actively watching or involved with the television. Simply having it on forces your eyes to inadvertently scan the source of motion for meaningful information. I assume it is an evolutionary trait designed to keep you alert in the jungle or whatever, to watch out for predators and prey animals.

In any event, try this simple experiment with a friend. Pick a really serious weighty topic and try to really get to the meat of it while both of you are sitting in a room with the television on. I think you need to both be facing it for this experiment to really work - that is, your eyes need to be able to naturally drift around the room and land on the television set during the course of your conversation.

If your results are anything like mine during this experiment, you will find that both you and your friend will occasionally turn their eyes or their whole head towards the television. They may still be consciously listening to you, but their attention has been divided between you and the television. There will be a dead period of silence, after which it will be difficult for you to remember quite what you were saying. Or, as you speak, you may get the impression that the other person is not really hearing you or understanding, as their eyes drift back and forth from the moving images on the television screen.

If you experiences very different results, I would like to hear about them…

The reason I ask about this is that part of me (the suspicious part) wonders whether or not this isn’t partly the purpose of television. Not just to disrupt meaningful conversation - which it does - but to disrupt also and dilute original, meaningful and sustained chains of thought. It does this nowadays by constantly bombarding you with rapidly moving images, colors, concepts, words and emotions. And as your brain races to take all this in, it’s no wonder you start dropping slower moving, deeper currents in your mind. Very likely, your brain perceives rapid motion as a potential threat, and places your attention on it, so that meaning can be derived from it as to whether or not it really is a threat. But by that time, you have been hooked into whatever it is going on onscreen.

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12 Reader Responses

  1. Rev max Says:
    August 12th, 2006 at 12:38 pm

    i read somewhere once that the brain can only take in 183 bits of information per second. Sounds like a low estimate to me but in any event, one would have to imagine that there is some limit.

    A study was published last week or so which I can’t be bothered to track down which seeme dto show that people who study or read withthe TV on retain some significantly lower percentage of info.

    McCluhan said that TV is a cold medium and books are hot. The first, you just sit there and passively absorb the bloue glow radiating at you. The second draws you in and engages your imagination.

    Its a shame. TV could be such a great tool to help people grow and learn in so many ways, instead it seems like its primary purpose is to reinforce socialization, transmit political propaganda and sell toothpaste.

    I am aware that that in itself is not a very unusual view BTW - perhaps even the hipster default view.

    WHen I was a kid I watched 6 hours or so of TV a day, when I grew up and moved out on my own I never did get a TV and lived for 10 years without one. We do have a TV in our house now. WHat can I say? My wife likes Malcolm in the MIddle.

    ANother study I recall showed that peopel who watch a lot of TV imagine that they have more active social lives then they really do, on some level their subconscious identifies the “Friends” as actual friends. Sad!

  2. Gary Says:
    August 12th, 2006 at 5:46 pm

    Wow, now you are treading into some areas that I have given much thought. In may of ‘98 I tossed TV out of my life (at least in a meaningful way) for good. No TV in my house. Recently, because we moved in April, we had to get cable in order to subscribe to broadband. So, grudgingly I let my 15 year old have cable in her room. I must say I have had no temptation to watch it all. But in the beginning it was odd to be without the idiot box.

    The main reason I tossed TV was because I am convinced that advertising is a hideous waste of one’s life AND because advertising uses soul eroding techniques to sell you their products. Subliminals are used amongst other, sophisticated, techniques. Futurama once did a show where companies advertised into your dreams in the year 3000. This is not so far fetched. Several of my more susceptible friends have reported dreaming about products they have watched commercials for.

    But these techniques are not limited to products. When Ross Perot ran for president he had an hour or half hour long advertisement run on TV one night during the run. I was dating a very easy going hippie chick at the time who worked in a nursing home in the evening. She was susceptible to say the least. At any rate, after working all night with all the TVs in the place blaring that ‘ad’ she came home and couldn’t stop telling me how, “We should vote for Ross Perot, I don’t know why but we should.” She must have repeated that phrase, verbatim, at least 10 times before I called here out on how odd she sounded and how creepy too.

    Evern worse, these manipulations aren’t limited to politcal domination. After watching music videos I have had the most bizarre dreams about the videos. One video comes to mind - Black Hole sun by SoundGarden - gave me armageddon nightmares and the twisting buring sun from the video figured prominently. Once you start to recognize these ’subliminal’ influences you get a knack for noticing them. This dream had that particular scent about it. I could go on but I am only interested in convincing those who would like to be convinced. I would like to read others ideas on the subject, however…

  3. Gary Says:
    August 12th, 2006 at 5:47 pm

    A wise man once said, “TV is a powerful totem but it has the soul of a rat.”

    Later, he also remarked, “The more advertising I see the less I want to buy.”

  4. Gary Says:
    August 12th, 2006 at 5:53 pm

    Sorry to spam but as I sit hit playing cards more stuff is popping into my head.

    I walk my dog in the mornings and late at night each day. Television sets blare on through the night and I notice two things.

    Eerie, blue and calming light seems to be the broadcasting color. This blue miasma is punctuated with periodic flashes of white light. These flashes seem timed to either get attention or some other nefarious effect. Creepy.

    Life without TV has been good.

  5. Tim Boucher Says:
    August 12th, 2006 at 5:56 pm

    Recently, because we moved in April, we had to get cable in order to subscribe to broadband.

    Great point - I wonder how intentional that is? I think from my own experience, the more time you spend online, the less you spend in front of the television. Packaging the two together forces people like us to grudgingly watch television in order to feel like we are getting our “money’s worth”

  6. Jacob Says:
    August 12th, 2006 at 7:11 pm

    I never noticed this, and to be honest, I actually think it helps me to have it on during deep conversations. I mean we may both be watching the tv, but neither of us is paying attention to it, or if we are, it usually spurs a whole new topic of discussion, it also takes off some of the pressure of having to keep a conversation going to avoid an awkward silence when you both run out of things to say, it’s sort of like a refuge that way — maybe that’s what TV really is, a refuge from silence.

    It also [b]helps[/b] me to maintain a train of thought sometimes, since I often have trouble devoting my attention to something by itself without a mild distraction in the background to focus my attention against.

  7. Gary Says:
    August 12th, 2006 at 7:46 pm

    The nile is more than a river in Egypt. No offense Jacob.

  8. Crystal Says:
    August 12th, 2006 at 9:20 pm

    “There you are,” said George. “The minute people start cheating on laws, what do you think happens to society?”

    If Hazel hadn’t been able to come up with an answer to this question, George couldn’t have supplied one. A siren was going off in his head.

    “Reckon it’d fall all apart,” said Hazel.

    “What would?” said George blankly.

    “Society,” said Hazel uncertainly. “Wasn’t that what you just said?”

    “Who knows?” said George.

    Harrison Bergeron by Kurt Vonnegut

  9. Crystal Says:
    August 12th, 2006 at 9:23 pm

    on some level their subconscious identifies the “Friends” as actual friends.

    For a creepy experience, watch Seinfeld with this idea in mind (preferably stoned). The placement of the cameras, the camera angles, and the editing are all designed to make you forget you’re watching TV and make you think you’re really in Jerry’s apartment with your friends Elaine and George.

  10. alistair Says:
    August 12th, 2006 at 10:12 pm

    couldn`t imagine for a minute hanging around with those people. bugs bunny on the other hand………..
    mcluhan said the t.v. has 450 bits of informantion a second to broadcast at yuo. that is so low definiton that the conscious mind goes to sleep after about 15-20 minutes. then it`s a direct line to your susceptability centers……………and you vote for a guy from texas.

  11. Tim Boucher Says:
    August 12th, 2006 at 10:23 pm

    the conscious mind goes to sleep after about 15-20 minutes. then it`s a direct line to your susceptability centers

    Implicit within that statement is a bias against the unconscious mind. It says that the conscious mind *must* be in control for responsible decisions to be made. But I am not certain that is the case. (See also this post on the logic of irrational behavior)

    Good RD Laing quote which turns your assumptions upside down, I think:

    What both Freud and Jung called “the unconscious” is simply what we, in our historically conditioned estrangement, are unreflective conscious of. It is not necessarily or essentially unconscious.

    I am not merely spinning senseless paradoxes when I say that we, the sane ones, are out of our minds. The mind is what the ego is unconscious of. We are unconscious of our minds. Our minds are not unconscious. Our minds are conscious of us. Ask yourself who and what it is that dreams our dreams. Our unconscious minds? The Dreamer who dreams our dreams knows far more of us than we know of it. It is only from a remarkable position of alienation that the source of life, the Fountain of Life, is experienced as the It. The mind of which we are unaware, is aware of us. It is we who are out of our minds.

    http://www.timboucher.com/journal/2006.../07/the-mind-of-which-we-are-unaware/

  12. Living In TV - Pop Occulture Blog Says:
    August 16th, 2006 at 8:32 pm

    […] I’ve had a long love-hate relationship with television. In some ways, I credit it for making me who I am today - which could obviously be a really good or really bad thing, but probably both. While in the past few years I have really minimized my exposure to the so-called “idiot box,” I can still see the appeal of it for people: namely, that it is a world which you can slip inside of at any time. […]



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