WHY TV IS EVIL

Jeffrey Rosen's upcoming NYTM piece (via Howard Bashman) on how to beat irrational fears of terrorism is about right:

How can we protect ourselves from our psychological vulnerabilities? First, we can turn off the TV. A study of psychological responses to 9/11 found that, two months after the attacks, 17 percent of the American population outside New York City reported symptoms of post-traumatic stress related to 9/11. High levels of stress were especially notable in those who watched a lot of television. This anxiety is only heightened by cable networks, which have converted themselves into 24-hour purveyors of alarm

. . .The vicious cycle at this point should be clear. The public fixates on low-probability but vivid risks because of images we absorb from television and from politicians. This cycle fuels the public's demand for draconian and poorly designed laws and technologies to eliminate the risks that are, by their nature, difficult to reduce.

This was as true about the war on crime as it is now about the war on terrorism, as Anthony King could argue if he were to publish a much-needed second edition of Running Scared (for the condensed version of the argument, see this Atlantic Monthly article). As far as I understand it, public perceptions of crime -- and demands for harsh anti-crime measures -- track television portrayals of crime better than they track the actual crime rate. These perceptions then prove irresistible material for our politicians, who are under more intense electoral pressure than their colleagues in the rest of the democratic world. The result: bad policies that don't solve any problems and serve primarily as ostentatiously public, symbolic markers of some sort of commitment to public safety.

Television's place in this causal chain leading to bad crime and terrorism policies is enough to establish its evil nature.

On a more personal level, I can't help thinking that our particular television is evil. When Anita and I returned home from vacation on the 31st, we were greeted by the sound of white noise coming from the basement. Eerily, the television had turned itself on to a random channel at some point between Christmas and New Year's. A friend counseled that we should "search the attic," but an extensive search of all the crevices of the house has not turned up any intruders.

Like I said, TV is evil. Technology is not supposed to have a will of its own.

If anyone has a rational explanation for our self-determining set, I'd love to hear it. Our explanations range from very strong crickets (there's a cricket plague in Bethesda, apparently) to improbably aimed infrared signals from our neighbors' remote controls.