Yesterday I was invited over to a friend's house for Thanksgiving dinner, and afterwards we went into the living room to watch TV. Now, I don't own a TV for personal reasons (none of them having to do with religion!), so it is very interesting from an outsider's standpoint to just sit back and observe how people interact with the screen and with each other.
It's probably an understatement to say that TV has changed a lot from the 1960's when I first started watching, but even then people were concerned about the effects of TV watching on young children. And of course they were pooh-poohed and shouted down and told that they were exaggerating and didn't know what they were talking about. This was in the 1960's. Programs now are more violent, faster-paced, more mean-spirited, more suggestive . . . I don't need to tell you TV watchers about what you are watching. No, it's not all bad. But the good is hard to find.
Anyway, the oldest child (who was actually an adult in his late 20's) had control of the remote. Now, one big difference I have noted between now and then, is that back then, if more than one person was watching and someone wanted to change the channel, they did not simply get up and change it without asking the others present if they were in agreement. To do otherwise would have been considered very rude. Not so nowadays. The minute a commercial came on, flip, flip, flip. He didn't ask, and nobody said, hey, we want to watch this. They all sat passively in silence. We must have watched (if that is the word for it) about 4 different programs within the space of an hour. Now I began to understand why so many of the DVD's I get from the library spend most of the program repeating what has already been said. You know, "we are here in the _____ and we are doing _____." They have to, because nobody sits down and watches a show from start to finish. We went back and forth between pumpkin hurling via catapult, how to make a fake marble sink, a National Geographic program on redwoods, and people going over Niagara Falls in barrels. Flip, flip, flip. It was literally driving me nuts, but I was a guest so I could not say anything.
Now this particular young man had by his own admission ADHD (and I wouldn't be surprised if he were on the spectrum by some of the other behaviors he displayed), but what I saw was in no way unusual. In fact, it's the norm. One person controls the remote and the others just go along with the show. I don't understand it. Do so many people go along with it because all programs are alike to them so it doesn't matter what they watch so long as they are watching something?
Anyway, it got me thinking about a possible link between TV watching and the spectrum (including ADHD). I started wondering about that back in the late 1970's, long before anyone else was raising the question. I didn't say anything about it, just quietly sat back and observed, because back then if you did say anything you were considered a crank. There just wasn't enough research.
Well, the answers are not all in yet, but from what I have been able to learn on the subject, researchers are now starting to look very seriously at a connection between TV viewing habits and the spectrum, and what they are coming up with is pretty disturbing. Perhaps it is simply coincidence that autism and ADHD rates have risen along with the increase in cable and satellite subscriptions. Perhaps the connection will be shown to be as spurious as the vaccine-autism link.
However, what does seem to be clear is that TV watching (like all other activities) produces changes in the brain, and if someone is already predisposed either by genetic or other environmental influences to be on the spectrum, it may be that frequent and early TV watching might trigger autism. This is not yet proven. Much more research needs to be done on the subject, but I would say that the science to me seems pretty sound. We all want easy and quick answers, and I think that eventually it will be shown that a combination of factors trigger autism and its related disorders, so I am not saying throw out your TV. The key is to be aware of what you watch and how much you watch and how it affects you. In my case, no, I don't think watching TV when I was a child caused my autism; I was displaying classic autism traits long before I sat down in front of a TV. But did TV contribute to my symptoms? In other words, did it help or did it hurt? I would say honestly that the answer is yes, in some ways it was not good for me, and if I had watched the amount of TV then as I hear the average American child does now, I think my development would have been even more severely retarded. But that is my opinion; it's not scientific. It's just a hunch. But I think it quite interesting that researchers are now seriously looking at the issue instead of blowing it off as just a bunch of hooey. I, for one, am anxiously awaiting further developments in the field.
If I am right, and there is a link, it may be evolution's way of adapting us to a new environment, one we ourselves have created, one that is artificial and has no precedent in history. According to classic evolutionary theory, there is no overall purpose or direction to evolutionary changes. Just random variation. If it works and it is passed on, then it is successful. So I am wondering if the spectrum is a response to our changed environment, and if it proves successful from a reproductive standpoint, neurotypicals will become the new autistics and vice versa. It may be that neurotypicality as we know it now will go the way of the dinosaurs. Of course none of us will be around to see if that is true, but it does make one wonder.
It's probably an understatement to say that TV has changed a lot from the 1960's when I first started watching, but even then people were concerned about the effects of TV watching on young children. And of course they were pooh-poohed and shouted down and told that they were exaggerating and didn't know what they were talking about. This was in the 1960's. Programs now are more violent, faster-paced, more mean-spirited, more suggestive . . . I don't need to tell you TV watchers about what you are watching. No, it's not all bad. But the good is hard to find.
Anyway, the oldest child (who was actually an adult in his late 20's) had control of the remote. Now, one big difference I have noted between now and then, is that back then, if more than one person was watching and someone wanted to change the channel, they did not simply get up and change it without asking the others present if they were in agreement. To do otherwise would have been considered very rude. Not so nowadays. The minute a commercial came on, flip, flip, flip. He didn't ask, and nobody said, hey, we want to watch this. They all sat passively in silence. We must have watched (if that is the word for it) about 4 different programs within the space of an hour. Now I began to understand why so many of the DVD's I get from the library spend most of the program repeating what has already been said. You know, "we are here in the _____ and we are doing _____." They have to, because nobody sits down and watches a show from start to finish. We went back and forth between pumpkin hurling via catapult, how to make a fake marble sink, a National Geographic program on redwoods, and people going over Niagara Falls in barrels. Flip, flip, flip. It was literally driving me nuts, but I was a guest so I could not say anything.
Now this particular young man had by his own admission ADHD (and I wouldn't be surprised if he were on the spectrum by some of the other behaviors he displayed), but what I saw was in no way unusual. In fact, it's the norm. One person controls the remote and the others just go along with the show. I don't understand it. Do so many people go along with it because all programs are alike to them so it doesn't matter what they watch so long as they are watching something?
Anyway, it got me thinking about a possible link between TV watching and the spectrum (including ADHD). I started wondering about that back in the late 1970's, long before anyone else was raising the question. I didn't say anything about it, just quietly sat back and observed, because back then if you did say anything you were considered a crank. There just wasn't enough research.
Well, the answers are not all in yet, but from what I have been able to learn on the subject, researchers are now starting to look very seriously at a connection between TV viewing habits and the spectrum, and what they are coming up with is pretty disturbing. Perhaps it is simply coincidence that autism and ADHD rates have risen along with the increase in cable and satellite subscriptions. Perhaps the connection will be shown to be as spurious as the vaccine-autism link.
However, what does seem to be clear is that TV watching (like all other activities) produces changes in the brain, and if someone is already predisposed either by genetic or other environmental influences to be on the spectrum, it may be that frequent and early TV watching might trigger autism. This is not yet proven. Much more research needs to be done on the subject, but I would say that the science to me seems pretty sound. We all want easy and quick answers, and I think that eventually it will be shown that a combination of factors trigger autism and its related disorders, so I am not saying throw out your TV. The key is to be aware of what you watch and how much you watch and how it affects you. In my case, no, I don't think watching TV when I was a child caused my autism; I was displaying classic autism traits long before I sat down in front of a TV. But did TV contribute to my symptoms? In other words, did it help or did it hurt? I would say honestly that the answer is yes, in some ways it was not good for me, and if I had watched the amount of TV then as I hear the average American child does now, I think my development would have been even more severely retarded. But that is my opinion; it's not scientific. It's just a hunch. But I think it quite interesting that researchers are now seriously looking at the issue instead of blowing it off as just a bunch of hooey. I, for one, am anxiously awaiting further developments in the field.
If I am right, and there is a link, it may be evolution's way of adapting us to a new environment, one we ourselves have created, one that is artificial and has no precedent in history. According to classic evolutionary theory, there is no overall purpose or direction to evolutionary changes. Just random variation. If it works and it is passed on, then it is successful. So I am wondering if the spectrum is a response to our changed environment, and if it proves successful from a reproductive standpoint, neurotypicals will become the new autistics and vice versa. It may be that neurotypicality as we know it now will go the way of the dinosaurs. Of course none of us will be around to see if that is true, but it does make one wonder.
