WHY it's wrong

There are so many reasons against having any apartment building's residents involuntarily bombarded with large screen television, am interested in learning what motivated the "senior care community" that's home to a grannie client to install several in their 1st floor commons area.  

Perhaps it particularly appalls me because of my own mother's experience, as an older, with television.  In her later years, she didn't watch television - ever - by herself.  Never, unless John and/or I was with her.  When it was as much a social occasion as watching a program or movie.  If she watched alone, she couldn't separate her sense of self from what was unfolding on the screen.  It was a major triumph when, in the last years of her life, after counseling that helped her develop healthy boundaries for the first time, Mom was able to watch & enjoy television by herself!  

Mom's experience watching television might not have been the norm, but I don't think it was an aberration, either.  In my experience, a lot of olders get drawn more deeply into television shows than younger people.  Could always tell when certain grannie clients had been watching a lot of television - other than sporting events - earlier in the day.  They were tense & unsettled.  Especially if they had been watching news shows throughout the day, as several did, particularly Fox.

In her article, Lifeline or Leisure?  TV's role in the lives of the elderly, Kathaleen Reid points out that while television viewing increases after age 55, it decreases as people get considerably older.  Most of the residents where my grannie client lives are over 70, with a large number in their 80s & even - like my g.c. - over 90.  

My grannie client is massively curious, intensely interested in the world around her, loves discussing what's happening, adores history & science - and hasn't the slightest interest in watching television.  The television in her apartment might as well be unplugged - she never turns it on.  And, unlike her radio & CD player, she's shown no interest in learning how.  

But now, due to the large screen monitors in the Club Room & commons area, she can't avoid being bombarded with not only television, but network news television.  Unless she starts restricting her goings & comings to the back entrance - which she dislikes - she is forced to run an electronic gamut, which to date has featured only Fox News.  

Can't speak for my grannie client, but I know that Mom would have been chronically depressed by the exposure.  And my g.c. has taken to asking, every day, "What is the state of the world?"  

Ms. Reid notes that, "Implicit in the couch potato stereotype is the assumption that seniors are passive TV consumers. They are not..."  Ah, but  this particular audience generally IS passive.  Judging from the conversations I overhear, both in the sitting areas throughout the commons & at dinner, television is not used by most as a stimulating entry point to broad & broadening discussion.  

In her closing, Ms. Reid brings up the very thing that has me most concerned with the oppressive presence of huge television screens turned to commercial programs - the key word for seniors & television viewing is CHOICE ~  "The majority of seniors actively choose the media they want.  (Television or internet?  This program or that one?)  It is absolutely vital that seniors be seen in that light (of choice) if their strength, dignity and responsibility for self are to be respected...  In fact, it's increasingly clear that viewers continue to make clear choices throughout their media-using lives. And through each stage of the life cycle, those choices reflect not only their current needs and tastes but who they are."

And by having huge television monitors mounted where they can't be ignored, blaring out news programs & adult-targeted advertising, the olders at a dear-to-my-heart senior community are being, in my opinion, poorly served.  Maybe grievously.  

It's wrong, so wrong.