Television has, since its inception, carved out a niche in the lives of those people who have a working TV set.

Television at its best can be a bridge between people and events of the entertainment, sporting or news variety that covers the gap of time and distance and allows the viewer to experience a gamut of visual stimulae within the controlled environment of their homes. It is meant to be a convenience and tool for mass communication and dissemination of compelling ideas just as radio used to be and just as the internet is becoming.  This is the fundamental role of TV in society.

It is more than a little bit over the top to suggest that television is a medium which promotes anti-social activity. But there are people who watch way too much, sit and vegetate when they could be outside doing something physical and excercising, socializing, getting work done (there’s a thought!) etc.
 
It is imagined there is this vast population, of morbidly obese, lazy, pasty-faced people mesmerized by TV screens. There is something to that. But one cannot ignore the benefits.
 
 It was never meant as a replacement for reality, a substitute for human interaction or a distraction which shifts the attention of the masses away from important events in society that it may have a say in. But in a lot of cases that is what it has become for too many of us. Modern bread and circuses.
 
If you regard television that way then you are thinking of it in the way you should really be looking at video games. The two are different. Video games are a substitute reality. Television communicates more information than gaming and does not tax one’s hand-eye co-ordination in the delivery of said information.
 
One can focus and ingest the information transmitted and compare it with personal experiences and learning. That is not limited to watching news or documentaries. Entertainment programs apply too. We engage but do so passively and take what we want from the programming offered.
 
The other positive effects are mostly accidental. Violent crime in North America declined sharply in the early 1990s and has continued to even during economic downturns. This coincided with with the vast majority of households across the continent not only having televisions but VCRs too.
 
It wasn’t tougher sentences or the extermination of violent offenders that led to lesser violent crime. Nor was it abortion rights leading to fewer unwanted children who could not then become criminals.
 
It was potential crime victims being encased between the walls of their domiciles locking out there would-be victimizers and gazing into a television screen. You would have considerable difficulty trying to mug someone who is not outside and you’d be less likely to try to break in to their homes if they are there with 9-11 on speed-dial.
 
North American prisons are full of dummies who tried that. But North America is also filled with people who might have turned to lives of crime if they had not elected to watch the episode of Gilligan’s Island where Mr.Howell thinks the other castaways want to kill him, or Star Trek with evil Captain Kirk or the show on Miami Vice where the guy who played Kramer on Seinfeld is the bad guy.
It can be difficult to plan a robbery if your attention is drawn to attempting to perfect your impression of John Forsythe’s narration to the beginning of Charlie’s Angels or trying to remember the lyrics to the Brady Bunch.
 
Worse, what if when you rob a bank you don’t look as cool and dangerous as the baddies on T.J. Hooker? After you have seen them get busted, tossed in cell and locked away never to be seen until they get to play the baddie on another cop show it does rather deflate the enthusiasm for the enterprise.
 
Another accidental positive is family planning. The birth rate in North America began decreasing dramatically with the advent of oral contraception, availability of abortion and other factors. But these factors also coincided with a dramatic increase in TV viewing.
 
Couples still want children but setting up a schedule for a husband to meet his wife’s ovulation is tricky if he is in the living room watching football. Don’t feel too sorry for the would-be mom. She is probably in the other room watching Dancing With the Stars on tape.
 
Recreational sex? Would-be dad goes into the basement, slips a porn vid in the VCR and ten minutes later the mood has passed. If he wants to be a daddy, he will have to plan for it and even co-ordinate it. Accidental insemination is no longer a likelihood of intergender co-habitation.
 
Fewer people in North America means less pollution, less consumption resources and a more manageable eco-system. I’m all for it.