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Media Monitor

by | 8th, March 2006

‘CAN looking at the internet, and engaging in its associated activities, make you go blind? Or what about making your eyes go square?

Taylor – a warning from history

Those of you who can remember when mum told you that if you sat too near to the telly you’d get square eyes should note that you now stare at a monitor from a distance of mere inches.

If mum was right, Britons will all soon uniformly look like Dennis Taylor, the former world champion snooker player, and latterly celebrity ballroom dancer, who sees the world in cubes.

As the Office of National statistics is telling us, we now spend more time looking at the Internet than we do watching TV.

Why this is, we can debate. But here are a few points to ponder. Is it because censorship is virtually non-existent on the web? Is it a matter of immediacy and intimacy? Is it because there is only so much soap opera and Celebrity Tree Felling you can take?

Until the ONS investigates further, we will not know. All we know is that we typically spend 41.5 says a year with our faces stuck in a PC monitor, against 37.5 days watching Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen painting the Home Counties a revolting shade of mauve.

And the popularity of the Internet is rising. The ONS say that two in three of us are increasing the amount of time we spend browsing the web.

The Internet is taking over our life. According to those official stats, the typical office worker’s lunch hour lasts just 19 minutes and 45 seconds. And most of that is taken up not with crafty smokes and swift halves in the pub, but a take-away sandwich and a spot of web browsing.

The only downside is that, according to the Mail, medical experts argue that the Internet is to blame for sleep depravation.

The paper doesn’t bother to say how the Internet disrupts sleep, and it may have less to do with the content on offer than working at home on computers.

But whatever the reason, Internet watchers can nod off by glancing up from the PCs and over towards the telly, where Davina McCall is shouting at another celebrity mate on her dire chatshow. And EastEnders functions as the BBC’s on air screensaver…’



Posted: 8th, March 2006 | In: Celebrities Comments (2) | TrackBack | Permalink