"A 'reformed' TV addict suggested that he went into 'news withdrawal' and began to buy two newspapers a day to make up for the loss of the evening news on television...(p.229)"
If you take anything away from a person that they are used to/habitually use, they are going to experience withdrawal symptoms. What if the situation were turned around? Does this mean that if a newspaper were taken away from somebody that read it daily, they would make up for it by watching the nightly news on multiple channels for a longer period of time? In this instance, based on some of the properties that classify a subject as a drug, could the newspaper be considered a drug? If the critics of television were prompted to take a stance on the topic, would any of them agree that the newspaper could be considered a drug based on its addictive properties to a person craving the daily news?
Point 2:
At the very end of the article, Mittell notes that TV-Free America takes no position on how they view the Internet despite how similar it is to television. I was waiting for this to be brought up while reading through the text and never came across what I was looking for. Obviously they do not want to criticize it because they use it as a communication medium to publicize their efforts, but I would like to know what their response would be if they were questioned about it. Would they give a response? How would they defend the Internet in a way that would make it appear completely separate from television?
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