Remotely controlled

Do you realise that, by the time you’re 75, you’ll have probably spent more than 12 years of your life staring at the television set?

In case you missed it, that’s 12 years!

It all started just eight decades ago, when John Logie Baird transmitted an image for the first time over the air-waves. Since then, TV has become one of the greatest influences on humanity – ever! From affluent western countries to tiny African villages, billions of people around the world spend countless hours with a remote in hand, eyes glued to the screen. Family evenings and mealtimes often revolve around it. And, in many homes, television has a greater hold over children than parents do!

Psychologist and author Dr Aric Sigman was in Godzone recently, sharing some compelling insights into what he calls, “the greatest health scandal of our age.” Using up-to-the-minute scientific evidence, he argued that watching television isn’t the harmless activity most people think.

So we tracked him down (an American now living in the UK) and popped a few questions – wondering if we might be told to throw our TV sets out the window: