A Mass Effect: Television's Impact on American Culture (Introduction)

(I just completed a research paper on 'Television's Effect on American Culture.' Through my research, I encountered some interesting studies and came across some solid arguments, both positive and negative, as to what the long term affects of living in a society dominated by television will be. One of the points of exploration involves the shortening of the American attention span, which I feel is a direct result of exposure to television as a mass media. It is for that reason that I am breaking this paper into weekly segments so that all you children of the TV era can stay focused. If you make it through the full paper, then you are officially less distracted than the average American citizen. Good luck!)

Since its commercial availability in 1927, there has been no denying the popularity of a little invention called the television. Defined by the Merriam-Webster Dictionary as an electronic system of transmitting images of fixed or moving objects together with sound over a wire or through space by apparatus that converts light and sound into electrical waves and reconverts them into visible light rays and audible sound, the television brought something truly and completely original to the households of people everywhere. It’s hard to put yourself in the mindset of a pre-television world, unless of course you’re old enough to remember one, but try to imagine how wild it must have been to see a moving image in front of you for the first time. Even the most revolutionary inventions in the world, i.e. the electric light bulb, the automobile, etc., were all based on previous inventions. Before the light bulb was the kerosene lamp. Before the automobile was the horse drawn carriage. Before television, however, the closest thing to watching TV in your household was watching your children put on some sort of play or listening to the radio while conjuring up images in your imagination. As is expected with such a drastically new form of media, there is bound to be some major changes in our culture as a result of its implementation. Television has created an entirely new behavioral pattern, never before seen, where attention spans are shorter than ever, shared knowledge has been altered dramatically, and the way we, as a people, think, react, and emote has been desensitized and dulled.