Perhaps more than any other medium, Television has always courted controversy and admiration at the same time. From the time we are old enough to watch the screen it is hammered into us that it is both a source of pleasure and guilt. Who amongst us does not remember our parents scaring us with phrases like ‘it will rot your brain’ or ‘you’ll get square eyes’ only years later to offer the same chilling advice to our own offspring while grabbing the controller yourself? And while parents always lament the good old days of their childhood where they spent their days frolicking free among the daisies and sycamore trees, unless you grew up before the Second World War then such recollections are often sadly more poetic than accurate. This is because from the late 1940s onwards the growth of the dreaded television in the home rose exponentially around the world and had confirmed its dominant position in the home and people’s lives by the early 1960s.
TV and Children
It is interesting to note that our fears over the effects of Television on children is not a new phenomenon but one that stretches right back to the early days. In the UK telly before WW2 was an extremely elitist thing where even if you could afford the exorbitant cost of a set and were lucky enough to live within the small London reception zone, it could only be enjoyed for a couple of hours a day due to the very limited broadcasts the BBC put out. However, by the early post war years the television revolution exploded in earnest. Sets became far more affordable and more and more Networks entered the marketplace. It was not long before people were left wondering what effect these goggle boxes were having on the poor children? The first substantial report on the subject was sponsored by Columbia Broadcasting Station (CBS) in America and Rutyers University. It is perhaps unsurprising that as an industry sponsored event the report found that Television actually promoted family unity and cohesion, didn’t make viewers more passive or aggressive and also didn’t replace other leisure activities such as social get-togethers or outdoor activities. Of course, despite this glowing report few were convinced.
In the UK the first extensive and authoritative study into the effects of TV on Children was conducted in 1954 by respected psychology Doctors Himmelweit and Oppenheim with support from a Miss Pamela Vince. It had come about at the suggestion of the BBC and was overseen by the independent Nuffield Foundation. Of course, all involved realised that the timing was historic. By 1954 there were nearly 3 million TVs installed in the 15 million UK households and that number was growing rapidly every day. What this meant logistically was that while some children were therefore fully integrated already into the new medium of television, a good proportion were not so a meaningful comparative study could still be carried out before it was too late.
Thousands of children from all age ranges and demographics across the UK took place in the study and in total it took 4 years to publish the results into a 500-page book. However, when the results were finally released the findings were inconclusive to say the least. It found that while some children of certain temperaments were probably negatively affected by regularly viewing television, others were positively influenced by it, and some seemed entirely unaffected. It was not exactly front-page news!
Television and Adults
Of course, the love/hate relationship of Television has never been confined to children either. When private network television began in the late 1940s it ushered in a new and highly annoying segment- the advertisement. While many children seem drawn to these short and very regular adverts they have wonderfully frustrated most adults ever since. We all fondly remember our favourite adverts from days gone by but scream at the screen when the show you are watching is suddenly paused every few minutes for yet more pointless adverts. To combat these annoying adverts the first remote controls were produced in the early 1950s to allow the viewer to overcome them. The magazine adverts proudly proclaimed their use to silence TV advertisements without seeing the irony of the comment. As we know these little control boxes beside the sofa would themselves explode in popularity and quickly inspired their own love/hate relationship.
If you think the family feud over which channel to watch is a new phenomenon then you’ll be relieved to know this tension also stretches right back to the early days of TV as well. Just as families fought over which radio show to listen to before-hand, so they now fought over which TV programme to watch instead. In 1955 in a moment of what must have been sheer crazy brilliance, the American Du Mont company developed a unique television with one screen that could display two different channels simultaneously. As TV screens at the time were merely made up of lots of grey or coloured lines that merge together to create one unified image, their approach was to layer a line of each channel on top of each other, then give people polarised glasses that filtered out the other person’s image. Sadly, I have no idea if this ‘Duoscopic’ TV ever made it into production but it must have created some very weird images if you moved position.
Of course, one of the reasons for the ‘you’ll get square eyes’ warning is due to the fatiguing effect of screen flicker. It is an issue that has never really been resolved even today and we all know that too many hours in front of the screen will give you a horrible headache in the least. Back in 1954 one company released a set of glasses (or clip-ons if you already wore glasses) that they claimed would eliminate the dreaded ‘blue light’ problem altogether. Once again, I have yet to come across an actual pair of these glasses at any antique fairs or boot sales suggesting they never made much of a splash in the market. Therefore, without such wonder glasses I prefer instead to enact the perhaps more reliable approach of hitting the off switch on the TV with glee and trundling back to the fields with the daisies and sycamores!
Photo attribution: Boy and TV by John Atherton; Boy with a Ray Gun by simpleinsomnia; Group watching TV by ralphbijker
