My kids have now discovered computers, Little League, basketball, pottery classes. They play board games with each other; they talk; they read. It’s amazing. The other night I came home and the whole family was gathered around while my wife was reading to them. I’m serious. I thought I was in the wrong house. It was like Little House on the Prairie.

The negative effects of TV go beyond zombieism. They even go beyond the violence, irresponsible sexual partnering, and general immorality that characterizes most shows. TV is actually destroying people’s ability to think, to concentrate, to have the patience that is necessary to complete a long-term project.

The problem is in the nature of the medium itself. In order to accommodate commercials, all actions much reach a conclusion in, at most, a five-minute segment. Most total shows must be completed in a half hour. From years and years of being exposed to this medium for hours a day, people’s minds have come to function in these same short clips. No one can concentrate on an idea for more than five minutes. Articles in People magazine and even in Newsweek have become snippets rather than the in-depth reporting of times past. Print advertisements, instead of describing product benefits, have become just logos with feeling. Politicians speak in sound bites rather than putting out detailed position statements.

Whereas once we were a nation with the patience to read through an entire book or sit through a movie drama like Gone With the Wind as it unfolds, now we can just make it through enough of Seinfeld to visit the fridge during commercials.

Our short attention spans are reflected in our changing sports preferences, as well. Once the American pastime was baseball. Sure, sometimes you’d have to wait through three innings till your favorite player came up to bat. Meanwhile, each player, as an individual, would have his own moment of drama facing the pitcher, and the whole team would be dependent just on him, just as in real life, where success is not just a function of our group identity, but of our own individual achievements. Sure, nothing might happen for an hour, till some great play would bring you to your feet. But this was a true reflection of life. Not every minute is your wedding or D-Day. Good things require patience to develop.

No longer. Now the great American sport is basketball, a game where five pituitary cases endlessly run back and forth across the court, throwing the ball first at this basket and then at that. Each minute is packed with action. Each minute is not that much different than the last. The beginning of the game is not that much different from the end. Basketball is a lot like TV, not much like baseball.