Ashley Spurgeon is a lifelong TV fan — nay, expert — and with her recurring television and pop-culture column "And Another Thing," she'll tell you what to watch, what to skip, and what's worth thinking more about.
There was an episode of Clarissa Explains It All, a childhood favorite that aired on Nickelodeon, I can recall quite vividly: For a school project, Clarissa submits herself to a full 24 hours of television to study the effects of media on the human brain. Of course, Clarissa has chosen this project specifically so she can live her dream of binge-watching (a term that didn’t exist in the '90s) all the televised crap she knows and loves — and since it’s a project for school, her TV-skeptic parents have no choice but to allow it.
Get this: Clarissa learns a very important lesson. Over the course of her daylong experiment, Clarissa learns there’s such a thing as too much TV, and maybe, just maybe, the growing human brain needs something a little more than two-dimensional game shows. This episode sticks with me for a few reasons. First things first: Clarissa’s dream was my dream, too. Would I ever get the chance to spend a whole day watching anything I wanted, no limits?
Another reason I can’t forget it is — I always thought it was kind of weird for TV shows to create whole episodes of television about how you should watch less television. I still think it’s weird! There’s something very Phyllis Schlafly-ish about it, in a “Do as I say, not as I do” sort of way. And the unspoken implication is always, well, our show is edifying, or at least entertaining in some way. Don’t turn this off.
One final note on why I might never forget that episode of Clarissa: dramatic irony. Less than a generation after the episode aired, technology made it easier and, more importantly, socially acceptable to look at screens all day. (Kids these days! Tablets!) But the pendulum is swinging a little back, as all pendulums do — there’s even a television show, Black Mirror (named after a screen), that dares to ask the question in a British accent: “Wot if all these screens ain’t so good?” As if Clarissa Darling didn’t answer that definitively back in 1992.
I further recognize the irony in how I, personally, have written multiple TV columns about why you shouldn’t watch certain things (particularly and as always, never ever watch cable news, especially now). More dramatic irony for me: My day job involves writing for various projects on YouTube, and for a client I recently spent a hefty amount of time researching and learning about the effects screen time on your health. (Spoiler alert, none of the effects are positive.) More dramatic irony for all of us: Have you noticed how, like, global society is somewhat in the midst of reorienting itself due to a pandemic, and self-quarantine has likely resulted in more hours spent binge-watching shows, working at the computer, playing video games, and engaging in the activity social science calls “dicking around on your phone.”
So here we are, in a historically unique time and place where everyone with a smartphone or TV has the hellish opportunity to do nothing but watch screens all day — Clarissa’s dream! It’s socially acceptable! Your work is demanding it! You’re out of work and can’t leave the house anyway! You’re a masochist and adrenaline junkie and need those sweet, sweet up-to-the-second updates on the crisis you have no control over!
Luckily for you, I have brought along some cool tips and tricks I learned from that work project on screen time. The best advice I can give is this: If you’re not giving a show your full attention, turn it off. Quality entertainment will blow whatever is on your phone out of the water every single time, so if you find yourself multitasking with screens, chances are, you can either turn off the dang TV and stop wasting electricity (hi, I’m your dad now), or spend that time watching something, like, good.
And have you heard of the 20-20-20 rule? Me neither, until a couple of weeks ago! The gist: When working long hours at a screen, look at something 20 feet away, for 20 seconds, every 20 minutes. This helps prevent eye strain and headaches, and grants the opportunity to ask yourself the question: Do I even want to keep looking at this? Is it actually necessary?
As a person who parlayed extreme TV-viewing habits into something of a career watching, writing about and making TV and TV-adjacent projects, let me tell you, I’ve learned Clarissa’s lesson over and over again. Trust me: You do not want to spend this epoch developing dry eye, gamer’s wrist, MSNBC brain, or any of the other myriad maladies that can befall the unwary screen-watcher.
