Television, invented in 1923, first aired in 1928, and since has become a perpetual prevalence at every fireside, must have some effect — mental, social or psychowhatever, on its human environment. I set myself some 10 years ago to finding out this effect.
My modus operandi (manner of operation; algo; method of procedure) was to find written work in the bookstore in Lakeport, then called the Bookstop, now Watershed Books, that had been written before TV became popular and compare it with writing that was current at the time. Pre-TV writing was not easy to find, but I eventually found a 1910 set of Encyclopedia Britannica, which I compared analytically and extensively with current writing, to no avail. It was written just like the then current writing.
No avail until now, that is. Just days ago I began reading “The Writer and the World,” copyright 2002, by Sir V.S. Naipaul, of the United Kingdom, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2001. This book was written in short, easy words that make it easy and pleasant reading. It moves swiftly along, jumping from subject to subject like the news is presented on TV, scattering information in fragments that refer to situations and circumstances that it would take a page of print to make understandable to an uninitiated reader.
The reader, however, is not annoyed; for he is enjoying all this fast ephemerality that assumes him so impossibly knowledgeable and mentally quick. Sir Naipual has developed a style of writing, which the sharp observer quickly recognizes as cunningly deceptive. It is enjoyable, though it”s sort of like music. It”s analogous to TV because it has assumed the manner by which TV keeps its audience from becoming bored.
So now I know one effect TV has had on society.
Dean Sparks
Lucerne
