24 Jul 2008, 0010 hrs IST, Sudhir Kakar Television viewing has become the Indian drug of choice. As the drug suppliers, offering more and more channels and inane programmes to fill them, celebrate the mass addiction, cautionary voices warning of the dangers tend to be lost in the self-congratulatory cacophony of the pushers and users. Over the last two decades, studies from many parts of the world have established the harmful consequences of television viewing. They find little mention in our popular discourse although their validity is no less than of studies which link smoking to serious health problems. I am not even talking of the psychological impact of the content of television programmes. For instance, the relation between violence shown on television and the increase of actual violence is now clear cut. Only someone...
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