Text  Unreality of TV

　　Dr.Heinrich Applebaum recently completed a study

　　on the effects of television on children.

　　It is not about violence,but about

　　how television gives children a false sense of reality.

　　Dr.Applebaum told me,

　　"The greatest danger of television is that it presents a world to children

　　that doesn't exist,and leads them to expect things that never happen."

　　"I don't understand,Doctor,"I said.

　　"Well,let me give you one example.

　　Have you ever seen a television show where a person in a car doesn't immediately

　　find a parking place on the very first try?"

　　"Come to think of it,"I said,"I haven't."

　　"Not only is there always a parking place,

　　but the driver doesn't even have to back into it.

　　There are two parking spaces for him when he needs one.

　　Children are being led to believe that when they grow up

　　they will always be able to find a parking place available when

　　and where they want it.

　　"I never thought of it,but it's true.

　　What else do they show on television which gives a distorted picture of the real world?"

　　"Have you noticed that whenever a person walks out of a restaurant or

　　office building and says to the doorman,'Get me a taxi,'

　　the taxi immediately arrives?

　　I have never seen a TV show where the doorman has said,

　　'I'm sorry.I can't get you a taxi.You'd better take the bus.'"

　　"Of course,"I said,"I never noticed that.

　　There is always a yellow taxi waiting somewhere off the TV screen."

　　"Now",said Applebaum,"have you ever said to a taxi driver,

　　'Follow that car and don't lose him'?

　　"Not really."

　　"Well,if you had,the driver would have told you not to talk nonsense.

　　No taxi driver wants to follow another car

　　because that means he's going to get into trouble.

　　But on TV every taxi driver looks as if he had nothing better to do

　　than to drive 90 miles an hour through rain-swept street

　　trying to keep up with a carful of gangsters.

　　And the worst thing is that the kids believe it.

　　"What else have you discovered?"

　　"Kids have a false sense of what emergency wards of hospitals are really like.

　　On TV shows they take a kid to an emergency ward and

　　four doctors come rushing down to bandage his leg.

　　In a real life situation

　　the kid would be sitting on the bench for two hours before he even saw a nurse.

　　On TV there always happens to be a hospital bed available when a kid needs it.

　　What the kids in this country don't know is that sometimes

　　you have to wait three days to get a hospital bed

　　and then you have to pay 500 dollars before they give it to you.

　　Applebaum said the cruelest lie of all

　　is when TV shows a lawyer defending someone innocent of a crime.

　　"On the screen the lawyer spends day and night looking for evidence to prove the person is innocent.

　　The defendant might say,But I'm innocent.

　　The lawyer would say,So what?

　　I can't afford to find that out.I'm not Perry Mason.

　　Then what you're saying,Dr.Applebaum,is that

　　it isn't the violence on TV but the unreality that is doing harm to children."

　　"Exactly.Even the advertisements are harmful.

　　Children are led to believe that when they grow up

　　if they use a certain mouthwash they'll find the mate of their dreams.

　　When they don't find him or her after washing their mouth all night,

　　they fall into a difficult situation and many of them never come out of it."