Britain's children eat, sleep and breathe TV

Beware the moral panic lurking behind these reports. Of course the Guardian isn't the Daily Mail, so no comments implying that the country is going to the dogs led by its citizens-in-waiting. So, in the article Life through a lens we are told: "Boys asked by the company to choose between programmes on different channels frequently refused, saying they would 'watch both'. 'They flick from one to another and cannot conceive that they should have to make a decision. They are puzzled that you should put them in a situation of having to make one or anther choice.'"
Now, this is not really new. Kids of my generation were characterised as doing our homework in front of the tele: we multitask (yes the men as well as the women!) in information.

The issues that tend to cause concern, though, are that kids seem to be reading less. Now be careful here: let's recall that reading was dissed at first because it would (and this prophecy proved true) stop people remembering things. We are in danger of fetishising books rather than recognising that it is the goods they are tools to deliver that are important. Some of those goods can be delivered by televisual and ICT media. AH! But! they're watching trashy soaps. Indeed, many are: but recall that mass literacy was similarly abused for similar ends and lo! Popular culture generated the bodice-ripper, the weekly popular magazines (as discussed in a number of historical studies of popular culture: I would point to the relevant sections of Callum Brown's The Death of Christian Britain for a view of popular reading in the Victorian period and into the early years of the 20th century) Tit-bits and the Sun. There is no technology or bunch of artefacts that will make 'us' more civilized. Technological developments merely make some uses less likely and others more likely, but all of them will have their characteristic virtues and vices. The moral panic response merely fails to compare like with like, mainly because it is running off nostalgia and self-righteous misanthropy. The trick is to recognise that there will be benefits and deficits and to try to identify both and respond accordingly. Hand-wringing is ultimately self-pitying laziness -probably.