A few nights ago I found myself watching television, I am not proud of this feat – but I am happy that I did.
It has widely been reported that television alters your brain, lowers your attention span, makes you more aggressive and all around has detrimental effects to your mental and physical state. Not only is the programming of low quality (in my opinion anyway) it will also place you into a “trance-like” state. This occurs roughly 30 seconds after you start watching the TV, your brain begins by producing alpha waves – the alteration of your consciousness. A light-hypnotic state spawns from this trend, making the viewer less aware of their environment and more open to subtle messages aka programming. Television has been and is used for mass-programming by many different parties as media expert Hal Becker once stated:
“I know the secret of making the average American believe anything I want him to. Just let me control television… You put something on the television and it becomes reality. If the world outside the TV set contradicts the images, people start trying to change the world to make it like the TV set images.”
A study from last year found that TV alters and changes the brain in children who watch it regularly. Yet TV is used as a way to keep our kids “busy.”
For more detailed data as well as superb analysis of the weaponization of television this article is extremely insightful. It sums up why I avoid television for the most part, at least cable as well as satellite broadcasting.
The Commercial That Says It All
The television company VIZIO released an advertisement called Turkey Dinner and it’s basically about a group of people being put into a hypnotic state by the TV: all while chaos ensues behind them. A near-perfect portrayal of what has happened to this planet; the majority is subdued into a hypnotic state while reality plays out unknowingly in the background.
When I saw this commercial, I was in shock at the accuracy of this allegory; whether or not it was created with that intent purposely or not. Here is a definition of an allegory according to the Merriam-Webster Encyclopedia:
2. a symbolic representation
The commercial is below, give it a watch and share what you think about it! Does it have deeper meaning? Is it just a coincidental commercial that also projects a subtle truth? Whatever it means I hope I offered some insight into this subject and you enjoyed this article, thanks for reading.