Historic Fears and Views of the Technology of Television: Sounding the Same Alarm As Modern Technology

Here are some great quotes about television…apparently it was seen as being just as disruptive to society as video games and the internet are today. So when we hear all those warning signs and signals, we may want to think twice…technology all seems to go through the love/hate curve.

Here are some quotes taken from Time Magazine’s History of Television

Television is all the talk—and all the talk is big. Its enthusiasts are sure that it will eventually (maybe sooner) make radio as obsolete as the horse—and empty all the nation’s movie houses. Children will go to school in their own living rooms, presidential candidates will win elections from a television studio. Housewives will see on the screen the dresses and groceries they want, and shop by phone. Television’s future, says Jack R. Poppele (rhymes with floppily), president of the Television Broadcasters Association, “is as expansive as the human mind can comprehend. Television holds the key to enlightenment which may unlock the door to world understanding.”
Television: The Infant Grows Up
May 24, 1948

During 1948, U.S. television showed every sign of being a young monster. In one year, TV’s formless, planless growth has caused seismic-like cracks in the foundations of such industries as radio, movies, sports and book publishing.
From Young Monster
Jan. 3, 1949

As the clock nears 8 along the Eastern Seaboard on Tuesday night, a strange new phenomenon takes place in U.S. urban life. Business falls off in many a nightclub, theater-ticket sales are light, neighborhood movie audiences thin….For the next hour, wherever a signal from an NBC television transmitter can be picked out of the air, a large part of the population has its eyes fixed on a TV screen
From The Child Wonder
May 16, 1949

As a better-informed public has demanded more and more information about current events, TV news programs have changed from loss leaders and have begun to start paying their way. And as the networks have made the most of them, news shows like Cronkite’s have become one of the most important and influential molders of public opinion in the U.S.
From The Most Intimate Medium
Oct. 14, 1966

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