One of the modern inventions I enjoy is being able to watch television shows without. It has gotten to the point where Peggy and I avoid TV shows where we have to sit through commercials.
Although you can fast forward through unwanted commercials, there are some commercials that you can’t bypass so easily. Those are the commercials and messages buried in the shows themselves. They remind me of a lesson I learned back in college from a professor named Jib Fowles.
Professor Fowles had unique insights on television and its effects on people One item he stressed was that television shows are designed for delivering an audience to an advertiser. They are not about enriching our lives or seriously entertaining us, they are designed for delivering your attention to an advertiser.
Today there are the overt ads for various products ranging from pharmaceuticals to automobile dealers. The ones I want to bring to your attention are the covert or sneaky ads. While you are watching the show, the show itself is designed for selling you something.
What the shows sell you is a value system or lifestyle. The shows are designed to shape and mold the audience’s thinking, including yours. Since I deal with relationships, I pick up on the relationship messages being shaped.
Make no mistake, the shows are selling you something as much as the commercials, only the format is different. Your mind thinks you can block out the products and just enjoy the show. The truth is that the shows are programming you. Calling the shows ‘programs’ is very accurate.
The danger is that you often let down your guard and don’t consciously reject products you don’t want. You end up passively consuming the lifestyle and relationship products they are promoting. When you don’t resist them, you start accepting them. This is how a mindset that accepts affairs sneaks into your life and your thinking.
Hearing the message that ‘Affairs are fun’ again and again over long enough period of time, it sinks in. Typically it sinks into the sub-conscious parts of your mind. It may be other variants like “Affairs are fashionable’ or ‘Affairs are what the successful do‘.
The programs make an appeal to something you desire (e.g. success, fortune, fashion, acceptance, being cool), then link it with affairs. By linking the message is sent that an affair is the way of making that happen.
In some ways, the shows program you as to who you should have an affair with and how to do it. When your mind is presented with this instruction enough times, it finally sinks in.
They show affairs between the attractive stars. This makes affairs look good and at the same time breeds seeds of dissatisfaction with your normal looking spouse and marriage.
The new year is a good time to start some good habits in your marriage. Any behavior you continue doing over long enough time can become a habit, including good things.
One thing you can do is join Restored Lifestyle and start making the needed changes in your marriage that you may have overlooked during recovery.
Wouldn’t you like starting the year with a better marriage rather than wrestling with the role modeling and behavior shaping provided by television programming?
Keeping It Real,
Jeff
