Down the Tube: The Diary of My Week in TV Hell 200 Channels No Escape

Tamara Jones is a former production operations supervisor in the
Entertainment Department of Paramount Canada’s Wonderland.

Before he spent 20 hours a day watching television for a full week,
Montreal Gazette columnist Bill Brownstein arranged for his clinical
psychologist friend, Dr. Sam, to determine his mental fitness before,
during, and after the experiment. Unfortunately, what follows is little
more than self-conscious commentary on shows that aired over a year ago.
No negative side effects are reported by the author, who notes: “Dr.
Sam is concerned that the moral of this story has proven to be that TV
is good and kids should be compelled to watch plenty to bump up their
powers of concentration.” The book’s ultimate revelation seems to be
that television is a wasteland (“mindless, numbing, repetitive,
tedious…”). But didn’t we know that already?