I rarely watch TV because I have so much more meaning in my life without it. When I do sit down in front of the box, I get sucked in to the flashing colours and the familiar noise and become transfixed. The giant screen takes over my life. The mix of flashing colours and the advertisements succeed so well at their purpose to suck me in, warp my mind and make me believe that I need the food that is advertised, the clothes on the model or the holiday that will transport me away from my current stresses; probably to a motel room with an even bigger TV that will give me some ideas to spend even more money that we can pay back eventually on credit. Somehow what I am staring at on the screen becomes more important than the life outside, the interaction I have with others or the music that I create on my guitar. I find staring at a screen very limiting and indeed quite strange but in the eye of the public it is totally acceptable. If, however, people are standing on the street doing nothing and I mean literally nothing, just staring into space and watching the world go by people, I do not regard this as an acceptable form of behaviour. The ‘nothing experiment’ tested the public’s reaction when they sent out an entire class of 262 students to go and do nothing. Staring into space does not follow the social norms and the reactions of the people were everything from abuse, to confusion, to outrage.
Halnon K, B 2001, ‘The sociology of doing nothing: A model to adopt a stigma in a public place Exercise’, American Sociological Association, Teaching Sociology, vol. 29, no. 4, pp. 423-438, accessed 27 August, 2011 via Jstor http://www.jstor.org/pss/1318944
Check out this site to see some of the nothing experiment:
http://www.sociologysource.com/home/2011/3/2/doing-nothing-learning-deviance.html
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