According to scientific studies, watching television can bring a certain state on our human brain, by inducing in some low alpha waves onto it. What are these alpha waves? They are brainwaves between 8 to 12 HZ, which are generally associated with the relaxed and meditative states as well as suggestibility brain states.
According to researchers, TV watching is quite similar to staring at a blank wall for many hours on end. In fact, Herbert Krugman led an experiment in the year of 1969 in which one person was monitored through many tests and it was discovered that in less than one minute’s time of TV watching, that person’s brain moved from the Beta wave-state (Beta waves are associated with logical and active thinking) to the passive Alpha waves. Also, the person’s brain returned to Beta waves’ state when he stopped watching TV and started reading a magazine.
This can indicate for instance one thing, and that is the fact that most brain parts which are responsible for logical thinking, can fade out during TV watching time. Although of course one cannot conclude after experimenting solely on one person’s brain, to assume the effects of TV on people in general, there have been many researches made after Krugman’s, which have repeatedly attested that indeed the act of TV watching has the result of producing low Alpha range brainwaves.
Of course, advertising companies have known of this for a long time now, and they also are good at taking advantage of this people’s brain state of the regular TV viewer, in order to make him/her sort of willingly be exposed to any of their products and induce in people the desire to buy their advertised on TV products. The thing about TV commercials is that in fact there is no need to use any subliminal messages whatsoever. So the advertisers’ task is simply to show a product on the TV screen, relate it to something positive and desirably, and let the viewers have their cake and eat it, so to speak, without the viewers’ realizing it wasn’t exactly to their own good.
Indeed, most people would only have to gain if they reduced their television viewing time. In addition to that, according to some more researches people suffering from ADD (attention-deficit disorder) or ADHD (attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder) have their brains mostly polluted with excessive Delta, Theta and Alpha waves, and therefore would be most likely to reduce this by either reducing TV watching time, or renouncing it altogether. The real thing is (and which of course, is not said on TV) watching TV can be harmful to anyone’s attention capacity and are especially noxious for those who already overpass their number of Alpha waves.
There are many healthy alternatives to watching TV. The most obvious one is reading books and magazines, so something that is not televised. Not only reading, but also writing can stimulate the production of higher brainwaves. Other pleasant and relaxing activities would be singing or playing an instrument, simply sitting quietly for some time, painting, going for a walk in the park, spending time with your family, training your pet, and so on. Your attention is simply stuck to the screen and some very unusual, but also subtle phenomenon can happen in your brain. Everything on TV is simply poured onto your brain, without logical or defensive filtering of the information. It’s somehow similar to being hypnotized.
For instance, if try to take a close look at the face of someone who is very attentively watching TV, you may notice the blank expression in his/her eyes, like that of a zombie. And although watching TV may feel relaxing (because it does have the ability to shut out all the rest of the outside reality), giving people the illusion that all their problems vanish when cozily sitting and watching TV, the true and sad fact is that the human brain goes to the Alpha wave state, so that viewers get more passive and less alert, less capable of defending themselves from any harmful message. It is perhaps a less known fact again, that the hypnotizing effect of TV and screen projections has been used by military powers to make soldiers more ready to kill, by showing them very violent and disturbing images, and then sending them to battle. This resulted in the soldiers’ becoming less sensitive, less remorseful when it came to killing others, like in a sort of hypnosis. So maybe it’s time for us to send SOB (save our brains) messages and stop killing our brains with TV.