Television and Consumerist Values

A new report by British researchers mentioned in the UK Daily Telegraph suggests that television watching causes mental illness. This is a different account than by the political scientist Robert Putnam, who has claimed that television watching has restricted social interaction by keeping people focused on the television rather than interacting with their neighbors and involved in their communities. Putnam has tended to blame television, when this study suggests that the culprit is rather the cultural values transmitted through television in a consumer-based society.

This study also suggests a reconsideration of the neo-classical assumption that self-interested behavior is an aspect of human nature. If consumerism and egoism can be taught, then assumptions of perfectly-rational actors with exogenous utility preferences is empirically unsound. Perhaps that is why advertisers work so diligently to attract children, when one's mind is still being developed socially and morally.

Excessive exposure makes a child materialistic, which in turn affects their relationship with their parents and their health.
That is one of the conclusions of a new wide-ranging survey into British childhood, produced for the Children's Society.
It says that children are part of a new form of consumerism, with under 16 year-olds spending £3 billion of their own money each year on clothes, snacks, music, video games and magazines.
The report claims that some advertisers "explicitly exploit the mechanism of peer pressure, while painting parents as buffoons" and that in its most extreme form, advertising persuades children that "you are what you own".
In addition the "constant exposure" to celebrities through, TV soaps, dramas and chat shows is having a detrimental effect.
It says: "Children today know in intimate detail the lives of celebrities who are richer than they will ever be, and mostly better-looking. This exposure inevitably raises aspirations and reduces self-esteem."
It adds the way celebrities are portrayed "automatically encourages the excessive pursuit of wealth and beauty."