Night after night you're stretched out in front of the great luminous
eye. Americans spend up to eight viewing hours a day, with some
researchers claiming each hour shortens our life by 22 minutes...!
You can take those stats for what you think they're worth, but here are two facts that seem indisputable:
*
Sitting in front of a glowing television, computer or cellphone screen
puts you at risk for depression. 'Science News' reports, "Nighttime
exposure to light from gadgets has already been shown to contribute to
insomnia, cancers, obesity and diabetes. Now there is evidence screen
glow can also cause mood related changes in the brain." Over the last 50
years depression rates have increased dramatically as artificial
lighting at night has grown more common. If there is a causal
connection, there's an off-switch to every gadget
* Watching
television means allowing into your living room thousands of hours of
warfare, gang violence, fireballs, homicides, rapes, child and drug
abuse. And all that even before the news hour. Researcher Tom Russ of
the University of Edinburgh tells Health.com, "Taking the bad news to
heart is bad for your heart." One out of four people experience anxiety
of that sort that distracts them, depletes their self confidence, and
keeps them awake at night. "Not enough for actual medication and
therapy, but enough to have less quality of life." Once again, the
avalanche of these disturbing images still has an off-switch
Hiding
from reality like this won't make it go away. But with pre-scheduled
TV-cations, those off-switches may prove downright curative.
Afterthought...!
Even without those heart-pounding screen images, there are still those
things known as books. Read a few best-selling sci-fi works like 'Blade
Runner,' 'Eye in the Sky,' 'How to Build an Android," or 'Solar Lottery'
and chances are you'll be too scared about the future to ever turn out
the lights for television again...!
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