Haven't written since just before Christmas Day because I've been steamed. Didn't want to mar the holidays by dredging up a now long-standing bone to pick with the administrative leadership at a beloved grannie client's senior residence. Yes, I'm talking about those blasted television monitors, still blazing their daily poison.
It’s been well over three months since my grannie client’s very nice senior residence installed three very large television monitors in its
main public area, two of them in a once cozy dining area that already had a
monitor. That once charming room is now frequently a horror chamber of silent news stories. Not very good for the digestion, let alone basic emotional health.
When they first appeared, right before November elections, I wondered if it was a clever ploy to influence voting. It didn't make sense that anyone versed in working with people would think that all news networks all the time would be healthy, let alone helpful.
Forget for a moment that the monitors are almost always on a network news channel, with Fox the apparent preference. For a place that prides itself on its energy & vitality, it seems spectacularly clueless that having ANY television programming on the screens - rather than music channels or stills from favorite movies, displaying collections of stunning menorahs or charming Christmas trees, or even a loop of residents' pictures of family friends or from their travels - enervates rather than energizes. Not at this senior residence, which keeps them almost exclusively tuned to news networks - MSNBC (on very rare occasions), CNN, and especially Fox, which seems the sanctioned channel.
On Christmas & New Year’s, the monitors were turned not to
lovely music or engaging shows like Jeopardy! or Wheel of Fortune or even The
Price is Right, but to Fox News. On
Christmas & New Year’s. It would be
laughable, if it weren’t so alarming.
And alarming, it is.
On Christmas Day, I snapped some photos of the most
prominent, impossible to miss place, in the main foyer – police killing, rising racial tension, another
missing airplane. On Christmas Day.
On New Year’s Day, it was a constant countdown of the
top stories of 2014. Think about the
sort of year it was. Yes, the sound was
down to inaudible, but the news ticker constantly rolled past & news show
graphics are inescapable. The residence had
a news channel glaring out on New Year’s Eve – what a grim way – for any of us
- to start 2015. For the elderly, who
are prone to fear of the future, who worry for their loved ones, yet feel
unimaginably helpless – beyond reason.
Having today’s news programming from networks like CNN,
MSNBC & especially Fox glaring constantly out at any of us would be
a recipe for the blues, whatever the age.
To have it the constant background in a residence for elderly men &
women is downright bizarre. To have it
blazing away on Christmas & New Year’s zooms it to mental malpractice. Can't think of a better example of a bad practice.
I hear you Deev - but the home I frequent has a continuous loop of very old (and to my eyes now) very bad British comedies, or very old musicals. I don't see any of the residents actually enjoying them - they seem to be asleep in their "cloud chairs", mny of them clutching stuffed toys (another bugbear of mine, as I had training in Social Role Valorisation). Certainly do not agree with TV in a dining area as it stifles conversation.
ReplyDeletethanks for the comment. imaging a loop of monty python (not faulty towers - too neg) - mega engaging! findings show that oldsters tend to watch significantly more television than youngers while enjoying it significantly less. it fills the time, without being entertaining or even interesting. maybe it numbs?
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