Not So Harmless Tv

What do my wondering eyes behold but an article in American Heritage by Walter Karp (“Where the Media Critics Went Wrong,” March 1988) trying to convince your readers that television has had no effect on the public.

As a person who does not now have and has never had a television set in his home, 1 am able to observe the deleterious effects of this insidious new drug.

I know of former community activists who now sit in front of their sets giggling night after night at cartoons. Many young lawyers who formerly could have been counted on to have read the daily newspapers from cover to cover prior to eating breakfast now admit they rely upon television as their sole source of information with respect to news.

Slogans, lack of athletic ability, cliché conversations, mass appetites for similar products, fast-food meals, lack of home life, lack of dinner-table talk—all are signs of the new TV age.