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by 15457345234 934 days ago
> Why is TV worse than a book?

Because of the reach. The percentage of the population that routinely read is small, really surprisingly small. The percentage that watch broadcast 'television' content (whether that be OTA or streaming or whatever) is high. As we've seen recently there's a bunch of people out there who have the propensity to do literally whatever they see someone else doing on the screen, tide pod challenge, devious licks, you name it, if they see someone else doing it then they'll do it too.

I'm not a censorious person at heart but you do have to be very cognizant about what's being broadcast to your population because it's surprisingly easy to stir up enough people to cause issues, especially if they're already stressed, and Northern Ireland in the 80s was a desperately poor and grim place.

1 comments

You may have it backwards though. A book is around damn near forever and has potential to reach way more people than a TV show.
You say that I 'may' have it backwards - do you personally think I have it backwards, or are you just raising the possibility that I 'may' have it backwards?

Just interested to know if you're actually contending here that broadcast media has, in general, less of an immediate and direct reach than literature.