Jim's post on television inspired me to put together the data that I have from the social relationships (Friends) book and the Time and Television summary that I did about ten years ago. It is an interesting way of comparing the potential influence of media and personal relationships in our lives. An immediate limitation of the data is that frequently the two influences interact, i.e., we either watch television or we talk with people (in person or over the phone, or by text) about what we have seen on television.
|
Friends Data |
Average |
#persons |
Hours/month |
Hours/month |
|
Contacts |
Individual |
Group |
||
|
Support group |
once a week |
5 |
8.5 |
42.5 |
|
Sympathy group |
once a month |
10 |
2.0 |
20.0 |
|
Contact group |
once a year |
135 |
0.3 |
40.5 |
|
103.0 |
||||
|
Television |
64.6 |
Some Observations
2. The total amount of time of the fifteen people with whom we interact most (our support plus our sympathy group) comes to 62.5 hours a month essentially equal to that of television time.
These people who are most important to our existence have great potential to moderate the influences of television. We are highly likely to either watch television with them or discuss it with them.
Of course, if we are choosing the media to fit our group preferences it might be creating a strong bond with our support group, and perhaps also in our sympathy group (i.e., the media silo effect)
3. The forty hours a month that we put into our contact group of 135 individuals has the potential to also create a community moderating effect. Even though we may see these people only a few times a year, there should be sufficient diversity to make us aware of our own group and/or media silos.
4. The eight hours of time spent with any one or even two members of one's inner support group, e.g., a parent, is unlikely to have much effect if what they say is at odds with the media experience of the person, especially if that media is backed up by other members of the persons support or sympathy group or even contact group (e.g., fellow students).
5. The four hours of time that a (young) person spends in church per month (if that is their total relationship with God) is unlikely to have much ability to counteract the influence of the media, especially if most of the persons in their support, sympathy and contact groups (age mates) have similar values.
6. In his classic book Bowling Alone, Robert Putnam puts the blame of the decline of social capital, i.e. networks of personal relationships, on television. It would be very challenging for someone to create an association (e.g. bowling team) that would have sufficient sympathy and contact members whose interpersonal time could mount a sufficient challenge to media time.
Raber came from a home where the TV was always on beginning at 4 pm, when his dad got home from work. His family would watch whatever came on and proceed to talk over it, either commenting on the show or talking about something unrelated. Often interaction involved catching people up about what they had missed in the show because they were blabbing.
ReplyDeleteI think that's true in a lot of families, so not sure how you classify that.
It would be interesting to slice and dice your info by habits pre and during covid lockdown (I suspect more tv time) as well as by age. After Dad died, my mother was self isolating in her final years. I would visit her every Friday, and she would tell me about what happened on "Two and a Half Men" as if they were her friends. It happened to both my grandmothers when they became homebound.
It was very sad, but I think that happens to many elderly people. I also think the TV erodes their attention span and sense of reality. But every nursing home I visit has TVs blaring in patient rooms and in the common area and dining room.
I think Raber’s Dad and your mother are examples of the “community” and “relationship” maintaining functions of TV. When people no longer have jobs, much of a family and no hobbies or interests, TV becomes something they can talk about and share with others.
DeleteYes, the TV seems to be a "community." In Raber's family, it was kind of part of the family unit. "The new hearth" that people sit around.
DeleteThere is an interesting movie, Robot and Frank," set in a near future in which an elderly man is given an AI robot as a helper.
I also see that some elderly people have mechanical "pets" that respond to petting and voices. Not sure how I feel about these innovations (other than that I hope to be dead well before I'll be fooled by a robotic cat) but at least robotics require interaction vs passive watching.
My father lived ten years after my mother died, well into his eighties. In the last three years before she died Mom taught Dad had to cook and manage his check book. When I visited him, I regularly reviewed his finances and did his taxes for him.
DeleteDad was very mechanical, simply taking care of his home kept him occupied. He had neighbors who kept watch over him. His sister and her husband lived about ten miles away; he saw them frequently. He daily walked to our small-town post office (no home delivery). My uncle's son who lived several blocks away helped him with some tasks.
Although I was three hours drive away, I had him ring my phone every morning at ten a.m., talked to him every Sunday. We visited each other every few months for about a week. He did watch TV to help past the time but never became very interested in it.
Mom had predicted to me that he would remarry. But I knew better. Dad thought he was very lucky in his marriage and was not going to take any second chances. He had enough of a support system and sufficient good health to keep going. His favorite saying was “The mind says go; the body says no.”
I’m slow at times. I really don’t get what the chart is trying to explain. How often we discuss TV with other people?
ReplyDeleteGrowing up the TV was seldom on in our house. We got the first TV when I was about 6. My main memory of TV growing up was watching Mickey Mouse Club and a few westerns. My dad was almost never home and when he was, he read, he didn’t watch TV. Nor did my mom - she was also a reader. She didn’t watch much TV ven when retired as a long single divorcée. I can’t even remember if she had a TV in her condo. Maybe a small one. It was never on when we visited, sometimes for a week or two. She read. During my single adult days, my friends, dates work colleagues etc never talked about TV. After marriage, my husband and I seldom watched TV before kids were born. After the boys were beyond toddler ages they loved sports, as does my husband, so they would often watch football and basketball games together. I never watched TV until we were both retired. Not even the news and we still don’t watch news on TV. Now we watch an hour of escape TV most nights after dinner. Usually something on PBS. I cannot remember a single conversation with any of our adult friends about TV programs or movies at any time in my adult life. I don’t think any of our friends went to movie theaters after they had kids. We didn’t and only went to a couple of movies while we were dating. . I’ve seen a few movies on airplanes. I do remember conversations with friends about books though.
Well, actually the men I worked with did bond a bit due to TV sports. The games were always a pretty big topic for them .
DeleteRight the sports are sort of a unifying common experience. One of the ties that bind.
DeleteWe didn't have a tv until I was in lower grade school. My grandmother had one before we did. We all used to go over to her house on Monday evening to watch I Love Lucy and Danny Thomas. She would make popcorn. That was a good memory; I kind of missed it when we got our first black and white tv; a little screen in a big wooden cabinet. Of course we were over to Nana's house a bunch anyway; we were just across the road. She liked Lawrence Welk, and sometimes we watched that on Saturday evening. I liked the Lennon Sisters, especially Janet, the youngest one.
DeleteWe could get two channels with the antenna, and they both signed off at 9:00 pm. First they played the national anthem, then it was the test pattern that sort of looked like a target.
DeleteMost of the television talk I've heard has to do with "hot shows" - television series that have somehow generated a social buzz, so that it's considered socially cool to watch them. When I was in college, one of the soap operas achieved that status - I think it was Days of Our Lives. A few years ago, it was Breaking Bad. (Maybe more than a few years ago now:-)). For whatever reason, mysterious to me, it was considered socially important to watch that particular show. I don't denigrate it; surely the productions are our literature for this era. For whatever reason, I am always a little out of step with the mainstream when it comes to the hot television shows.
ReplyDeleteLOL, when I was in college, Dark Shadows was the cool paranormal soap opera.
DeleteJack's points seem to be aimed mostly at comparing the time we spend with different groups of family, friends, and acquaintances vs TV.
ReplyDeleteWhen family time also includes the TV, as it did in Raber's family (incessantly), it's hard to know whether that's people time or TV time.
How TV affects people's interaction with others is interesting. I talk about books and movies frequently with friends. I taught mass communication and journalism, and another friend taught literary dimensions of film, so discussions about "media" fall in our roundhouse. I see nothing shallow in those discussions, and they provide interesting insights.
Probably redefining what we mean by "TV" deserves more thought. For instance, yesterday I used the TV to stream my yoga class from YouTube, to watch network news, to check the Weather Channel, and to stream an episode of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds.
However, sometimes I access all of the above programming on my tablet. So is any of this "TV" or more properly classified as "screen time"?
Yeesh, Dark Shadows. I remember Willie the caretaker backed into a prop tree on that show, and it was so flimsy it almost tipped over. There was also the time a fly got into the studio and landed on Barnabas's head. My brother and I loved that show. It was hilarious.
Well, looking at the chart again, I would say that outside of my husband I don’t interact much with a “ support” group. Usually talk to sons and grandkids about once every two weeks virtually. But not during the summer because two sons and their families are spending most of it in Europe. Outside of our nuclear family. I don’t interact with others more than once/ month by phone or in person on average - maybe 3 or 4 friends. Not 10. I doubt I even know 135 people anymore. Annual interactions with contact group might involve 35 people, including saying Hi to a few neighbors when we walk. But Hi is about the extent of the conversation. The friends we had for many years here have moved away or died. We don’t interact much with the 30s and 40s age people who bought our friends’ homes. They are involved with careers and still raising children. We watch about 30 hours of tv/month.
ReplyDeleteI do remember some of the girls in my college dorm talking about Dark Shadows. I don’t ever remember watching it though. I’ve never really been involved with pop culture except for some of the 60s and early 70s music- the Beatles, Abba, Beach Boys, Rolling Stones, Mamas and Papas, Simon and Garfunkel . Maybe a few others, especially some of the folk groups like Peter, Paul and Mary. .