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Sociability at stake?
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People hardly go out to socialise because of the time spent watching soaps on television
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TV IS ADDICTIVE: Families spend more time watching serials than socialising with relatives and friends.
"I'VE TO be back home well before 9 p.m. every day. Otherwise, I'll end up dining alone with no one even to serve me food," says Srinivasan, who works in a private concern.
"My delivery boy has to make many visits to the same area at different times of the day depending on the choice of serials my customers watch on TV," says Anwar, who owns a grocery store in the city.
"These days, my mother-in-law never complains of loneliness, as the mega serials keep her glued to television," says Meena, a working woman.
During serial viewing hours, even a doorbell evokes an angry response and phones are answered curtly. Such is the hold of mega serials on people.
But what is it that makes the serials tick? While some of them keep the audience in splits, most have revenge as their theme.
More often than not, you find women being portrayed as aggressive, self-willed and scheming characters. But an overdose of revenge and violence will only affect the human psyche in more ways than we are able to understand and control.
Since television is a medium that affects the masses directly, is it not the duty of producers of serials to provide healthy entertainment?
This is just one side of the story. The increase in the number of channels as also serials — Metti Oly, Annamalai, Anandam, Kolangal, Ahalya, Avargal, Roja, Kalki, Edhir Neechal, Manaivi, to name a few — has led to a situation where people hardly find time to socialise.
They prefer the company of the characters in the soaps to that of their friends and relatives.
As Meena puts it, "Where is the need for real-life people when one feels contented with the human drama enacted on TV? Viewers get so engrossed with the scheme of things in the serials that they even begin to `interact' with the characters oblivious to reality."
Everything, be it household chores or spending time with children or even shopping, seems to be dictated by the timing of serials. Shouldn't we get our priorities right?
Instead of succumbing to the temptation of watching all the serials, shouldn't we find ways of spending our time in a healthy way?
LAKSHMI SUNDARAM
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