The Videophobes

Since the spread of cable TV systems, the U.S. has been buried under a blanket of television. According to the Nielsen ratings service, approximately 95% of U.S. households have TV sets. But what of the remaining 5%? Some live in mountain areas like Appalachian Georgia, or the new ski-resort town of Vail, Colo., where cable TV has not yet penetrated. Some Americans cannot afford to buy a TV set, although more American homes have TV than have telephones or bathrooms, and, as the Kerner Commission reported, television is "the universal appliance in the ghetto." Thus, many of the 5% who do not have TV sets are just plain holdouts or former TV addicts who have kicked the habit. Rather than being culturally deprived, many of the nonowners and nonwatchers are--or see themselves as being--culturally superior.

Horrible Specter. Dr. Richard I. Evans, a University of Houston social psychologist, suggests that not owning a television set has become "a reverse status symbol. What these people are actually engaging in is a form of snobbery." Chaytor Mason, a psychologist at the University of Southern California, agrees and adds a few additional non-TV types to the list: "the high-button-shoes, who have refused to change over from radio," the "active personalities like Harriet Housewife, who have too much to do or can't sit still," and the across-the-board mavericks, who just have to be different.

Some people seem to forgo TV as a form of personal protest--against society, the 20th century or the erosion of their privacy. Manhattan Architect John Keane, 28, considers TV "depressing to have around. Lots of people I know don't have television sets, but they also don't have telephones." Others ignore TV because they are afraid of getting hooked. Mrs. Jay Sheveloff. 30, of Boston, has seen the "horrible" specter of her in-laws watching continually; she refuses to have TV around --at least until her husband finishes his Ph.D. A number of nonowners ascribe their resistance to religious motives. A devout Episcopal couple from Florida, who prefer anonymity, consider TV "contaminating." None of their five children (now aged 13 to 25) was allowed to watch. What about them now? Their oldest son, now a high school teacher in California, admits to smoking pot and is raising his two-year-old son on the laissez-faire principles of Scottish Educator A. S. Neill. But not on TV; the child will have to grow up without it. A fair number of videophobes are Quakers.

All the families know perfectly well what they are missing. Sets may burn in their offices during the World Series or space shots, and many who would not have a receiver in the house watch on the sly at their neighbors'. This suggests that it is frequently not TV per se that is objectionable, but the quality of everyday programming. "What I've seen," says Mrs. Paul Scott, 27, of suburban Los Angeles, "has really frightened me. There's this tremendous emphasis on materialism. And of course the violence." Mrs. Jan Rogers of Tallahassee, a mother of two young children, feels the same way. Eighteen months ago, she "just unplugged the damn thing and put it into the closet." She is particularly happy, she says, to be free of the bombardment of all those commercials.

Some parents feel that the tube is an obstacle to good family relationships. Mrs. Kenneth Johnson of Northbrook, 111., feels that she has "much better communication" with her eleven-year-old boy since the TV set broke (she has since sold it). Many parents fear that television will stunt their children's imagination or hobble active participation in life. Mrs. Gerald Fitzgerald says that her husband, an associate professor of English at Boston University, has proscribed TV because "he wants the images the kids see to come out of their own imaginations, not to be prefabricated by some producer." Robert Parker, one of the founders of the Vail, Colo., ski community, thinks that TV-raised kids live too vicariously. Last summer he took a twelve-year-old boy on a rugged raft expedition. Afterwards the boy conceded that the experience was "O.K., but not as exciting" as the trips he had seen on television. "The fact that he was involved in this particular trip meant nothing to him," says Parker.

Social Dilemma. The most prevalent reason for keeping the kids away from TV, of course, is the presumption that the denial will encourage reading. David Whiting, 22, was raised without TV in Manhattan. He compensated by knocking off as many as three books a day, and about 100 books during every summer vacation. Whiting now admits that he was somewhat disorientated when he started dating girls. He never knew whether "to watch her TV set or to neck on the couch." He obviously never cottoned to the generally accepted solution to the problem: to neck by the light of the screen.

Those without television have a more common social dilemma. Chicago Lawyer Peter Boland, 26, sums it up when he says that he feels "a little ostracized." People eye him "with a queer look, as if to say, 'Wonder what's wrong with that one?'" Chicago Psychiatrist Ner Littner sees nothing wrong. Littner finds that his nonwatching patients and friends are no different from anyone else: they think and dream as creatively or uncreatively as anyone else, and are neither more or less afflicted with emotional problems. U.S.C.'s Psychologist Mason worries about the most excessive watchers and the most obsessive nonwatchers. Both types, he says, tend to be withdrawn, confused and unimaginative. Houston's Psychologist Evans is concerned about any absolute parental ban of TV. In that case, he notes, the kids are apt to regard television as "forbidden fruit"; later they grow into TV nuts. Dr. Evans emphasizes the importance of teaching youngsters "selective viewing." To take any other stand "in an electronically saturated world," he says, "is self-delusion."

Life Reclaimed. That seems to be the consensus of most thoughtful Americans. After a spartan self-denial that lasted ten years, Boston Psychiatrist Peter Reich and his wife recently bought a set. Mrs. Reich explained: "Television is part of our culture, and having TV will give the kids a feeling of knowing what everyone else knows." Similarly, Dr. Richard Kenyon, an official of the American Chemical Society in Washington, reclaimed his set after two years' banishment. "If you are without it these days, you are a little too out of touch with the stream of modern life," he says. Abe Wollock, an associate professor of theater arts at U.C.L.A., insists that TV for the most part is scarcely an adult intellectual challenge. But he is also persuaded that "wisdom and knowledge have always come through the visual sense. When a man throws out his television, there's a bit of suicide in it."

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