Becoming passive watchers will eventually make us lose the ability to create things within our mind.
As I said, I see this as a step backwards for everybody.
But for children, it may even be dangerous, because it gradually atrophies that part of the mind that is in charge of creating.
After being put in a plaster cast for a few week’s a person’s arm or leg becomes thinner and does not function well.
If you atrophy the brain, or at least a part of the brain – and not for one day or one week, but for a few years – you get a person with a shrunken, shriveled kind of brain, one who has lost the most advanced human capability.
I am not preaching about morality, just stating a biological fact.
I am saying that in this medium, TV, lies more than a mere message: in it lies the power to destroy our humanness.
The Greek philosopher Aristotle once defined human beings as two-legged, featherless creatures.
And one of his opponents once brought a plucked chicken to the academy, saying: “Aristotle, here is your man.”
It seems that watching TV turns us into two-legged, featherless creatures – with TV sets.
This is becoming the new definition of a human being.
–Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz