TV “Dunces”

● The danger caused to children by excessive TV viewing may be more than wrong moral influences and a factor in the generation gap. Phyllis Dolhinow of the University of California, at Berkeley, explains: “The child sits passively in front of a television set, uninvolved in social interaction or creative use of the intellect.” Referring to such children as ‘telly dunces,’ the London Daily Mirror noted the concern of British scientists for many aged nine to eleven whose reading age is less than six. “They are likely to wind up as illiterate adults​—because they come from homes where their main . . . source of information is television and pop records.”