While we think we’re just watching, we’re also being shaped by the stories and images we see. We watch how others live their lives and we see the values they hold. Our brains notice everything, even if we’re not paying much attention, and we compare what we do, with what ‘they’ do. Here’s a live concert video from 1990 when Pete Seeger invited me to join him on stage at the Theatricum Botanicum in Topanga.
YOU GET A LITTLE EXTRA WHEN YOU WATCH TV.
Cho: You get a little extra when you watch TV C
Ain’t that ducky! Well you’re lucky if you see, that G7
You get a little extra when you watch TV! C-G7-C
You sit too close and you get a big surprise
Lots of radiation in your body and your eyes
Your eardrums hum when someone turns it up too high,
When you watch TV!
We learn lots about our bodies and our aches and pains,
Headaches, hemorrhoids, heartburn, diarrhea, denture stains
Gotta buy more drugs t’stop your stresses and your strains
When you watch TV !
Chorus
When someone in an advertisement tells me lies
I jump up and switch the channels, so I get some exercise
And my body’s getting healthy and my mind is getting wise
When I watch TV!
Daddies only love the Mommies when the dirt’s all gone
From their shirts and shiny floors, the coffee has t’be right on,
I’m so glad my Dad’s not fussy, cause he’d leave my Mom,
If he watched TV!
Chorus
In real life it never works when people go
And hit and kick and punch and smash each other’s heads and toes
But it always solves the problems on the cartoon shows
When you watch TV!
Last night on the highway when our car got stalled
We saw a bloody accident with bodies that were mauled
Though my folks got sick, it didn’t bother me at all.
Cause I watch TV!
Chorus
Now you may think that I am lazy, don’t you call me names
I’ve learned important skills from playing video games
If a spaceship should attack us I could shoot ‘em down in flames,
Cause I watch TV!
And a big TV can really give you quite a rest
If you get one near your bed, you’ve got no reason to get dressed
You never have to talk to anyone, your life is a success
When you watch TV!
Chorus
Written by Peter Alsop, ©1983, Moose School Music (BMI)
On Wha’D’Ya Wanna Do?, Songs On Recovery & Addiction, & Pie In The Sky
https://www.peteralsop.com
(Illustration by @TerriAsher)
I wrote this song in 1983 about all the little hidden messages we get when watching television. It’s helped thousands of kids and families build awareness about how we are subtly influenced every day through our ‘media screens’. I think it’s even more relevant now than it was back then, because when we go into our ‘screen-time focus’, we check out of our ‘real-time awareness’, and we miss many of the interactions we could be having with real people and real things that are actually right there in front of us. Our ‘real time’ life-minutes tick by without us picking up on the nuances of the world around us. And, of course most of us have our own portable private screens now!
When screen time becomes ‘normal’, we don’t even question that maybe we’re getting unhealthy radiation from our device. Everyone else is doing it!
If taking a pill is the ‘normal’ way we stop our pain, we may embrace the message, that everything problematic in our live can be ‘fixed’ with some elusive simple answer.
If I believe that I’m getting sufficient exercise simply by getting up to change channels, (although everyone nowadays has remote channel changers!), I’m unlikely to put the ‘screen’ away and go outside for a walk or a jog. You get the point.
It’s very human and normal to focus on our entertainment or on how many ‘friends’ we have listed on the internet, but as we become more aware of the powerful, subtle, nowadays dishonest
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