One night this week, we were going to watch Children of Dune, which is a TV miniseries based on the novel by Frank Herbert. James has read the entire Dune series 5 times or something, so he’s a big fan. So we settled in on the sofa and watched some character get blinded in the first 30 seconds. James looked at me and said, "you know, this book is incredibly depressing, and I think it would be worse in video." So we turned off the TV and snuggled up with our junk novels.
Later, I realized that the same reason that James could read, but not watch Children of Dune is the same reason we can’t stand to watch TV news. This week world events have been splattered all over the television. And I refuse to watch it. I’m watching cable movies and mindless sitcoms instead. Am I hiding under a rock? Do I not care about the troops overseas? No. It has nothing to do with my politics. My decision to avoid televised news has to do with my mental health.
I have realized over the years that how you get your news makes a huge difference in your life. Some of the most miserable people I know watched every single video image of every missile fired of the last Gulf War. In 2001, they spent hours glued to CNN reliving the horror of September 11th, watching the World Trade Center towers fall repeatedly. Now, experts have come to the conclusion that too much video input of horrific world events actually contributes to post-traumatic stress disorder.
This finding comes as no surprise to me. My childhood memories include many images of the Vietnam war, the first war to be televised. Later when I was in high school, President Reagan was shot. Since I lived just outside of Washington, D.C. the event hit very close to home. I spent hours watching every report and saw James Brady’s blood splattered all over the sidewalk over and over. At some point I realized that I was making myself sick with fear, partly because when the reporters ran out of actual facts, they moved toward opinion and "commentary." The hyped-up, tabloid-esque headlines and obvious competition for ratings was revolting.
As an aside, the Eagles’ Don Henley wrote the song "Dirty Laundry" at about the same time, so apparently, it wasn’t just me (if you don’t remember them, this site has the lyrics: http://www.lyricsdomain.com/lyrics/24705/).
Suffice it to say that circa 1981, I said, "enough" to the loathsomeness of TV news. And since that time, I’ve decided that when major events happen, I will only read about them. With a written report, you can skim or completely skip articles that you don’t want to read. With television, someone else’s interpretation of events is force-fed into your brain. You might as well be attached to electrodes.
I’m old enough that I’ve got enough images of bombs and people dying in my psyche as it is. I don’t need any more.