"Not unlike drugs or alcohol, the television experience allows the participant to blot out the real world and enter into a pleasurable and passive mental state. To be sure, other experiences, notably reading, also provide a temporary respite from reality. But it's much easier to stop reading and return to reality than to stop television watching. The entry into another world offered by reading includes an easily accessible return ticket. The entry via television does not. In this way television viewing, for those vulnerable to addiction, is more like drinking or taking drugs-- once you start it's hard to stop." p. 32

"Young children today have a sophistication that comes from all their contacts with the outside world via television, but sophistication and maturity are not the same thing. Children today are often less mature in their ability to endure small frustrations, or to realize that something takes a longer time to do, that it isn't instant. They're less tolerant of letting themselves become absorbed in something that seems a little hard at first, or in something that is not immediately interesting." p. 137

~The Plug-in Drug

Great article: Avert Thine Eyes, Life without tv