I just watched one (1) hour of TV, and the effects are depression, paranoia, and anxiety (mostly about the time wasted). And fatigue.
I watched a lot of TV at my sister’s in FL. The only differences I can tell are: wasn’t network (standby for comment about news advert), wasn’t drama; mostly Discovery and TLC.
The adverts were muted; still, the advert for the evening news frightened me. Somehow with the sound turned off I was more free to analyze the visual cues and symbols spewing out of the soulsuck box.
TV drama sucks pretty fucking bad. I thought on the way home (oh yes I have no TV don’t you know) that it is a factor of the medium/industry. Teams of writers having to deliver on a schedule and for a, let’s face it, lowest- common-denominator audience. Books and movies, while certainly not scarce, are way more scarce than TV dramas. They take months to write, edit, produce. Sure there are duds, lots of them, and those probly make the most money (back to the LCD). But there is a lot of good stuff out there too.
I’ve yet to see good TV drama, particularly lately (Northern Exposure is the only one I’m thinking as reasonably OK, evar).
So, I just don’t get it.