So, here we are in a Britain with kids wandering aimlessly around in packs.
These bored, restless and feral latchkey kids are going out and mugging, nicking cars, and generally terrorising people. It doesn’t matter where they live in the UK. It’s not a town thing. It’s not a country thing. It’s everywhere. Why?
Soap operas and Reality TV.
Where once upon a time children felt loved and the centre of attention, and life revolved around the family and them, it now revolves around Corrie and Big Brother. Parents have no time for their kids any more. Instead, they are hooked up to the crack cocaine-like bliss that they get from Eastenders and I’m a Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here, saying “Shhh” whenever the child dares speak. Even when a conversation is allowed it is either during the commercials or with one eye permanently distracted by the live feed where ‘real’ people may or may not be about to have sex or beat each other up.
This neglect and child abuse is so prevalent that storylines in the soaps will even reflect it. However, rather than get the message and look at their own lives and question why they are falling apart and why their kids are causing so much grief, the concern is concentrated on who’s going to find out who’s the real father of a soap character’s baby. They are far too busy living the lives of the housemates to notice their own household is in ruins, as they shout at their own questioning child who dares to want to speak to and get comfort and love from his mother whilst Trisha or Kyle is on.
On those rare occasions when they are out of range of their TVs, they’ll be thinking not about their family, but about the pretend families they live to watch every evening. They’ll even discuss them at great length with their friends and neighbours, and buy magazines dedicated to them.
When faced with problems Christians often ask “What would Jesus do?” In the average UK household it’s “What would Grant Mitchell do?”
The reason they have no idea what to do is because their brains have been completely destroyed by their addiction, and they only know how to look on in ore as storylines unfold before them, with problem and then solution all decided by the writers and played out by the actors, with no need for thinking on the part of the viewer. They have no idea how to make decisions on their own. They have no idea how to deal with the real life problems surrounding them. They have no idea that there are real life problems surrounding them.
The addiction used to be a lot less when there were less soaps and reality TV shows. But now there are soaps 7 days a week, and there’s live streaming of reality TV.
Now they can sit in their own filth and dysfunctional household watching strangers in a TV-set based dysfunctional household. We look on in horror when the addiction causing child neglect is drugs or alcohol related, but for some reason we just accept this new addiction as if it’s ok.
Big Brother ran for nearly four months over the summer. Pity the poor kids who were on holiday and really would have liked to do something with mum or dad, but had to spend all that time just forgotten about and amusing themselves whilst they tried but failed to compete with the live streaming that’s far more important than they are.True, some of the kids gave up and just sat there trying the experience as they probably do with heroin addicted or alcoholic parents, letting it dull their brains to the sadness of the neglect they feel. Soon they knew exactly who to boo on eviction night rather than cry for their own sad life. But others were out in the streets causing problems and difficulties to those not already at home watching celebrities having sex or a plastic duck tend to farm animals.
Would the addicts all still be watching if all that happened on Hollyoaks was everybody just sat watching the live streaming from Big Brother? Sadly, I suspect they would.
England's England 
Right again Chris,
But this is not a new thing. When I was very young, nobody on our street had a TV and then one progressive guy ( Mr Collis ) bought one. When he was feeling generous he would let the neighbours kids come and watch. But, his instruction as we all sat down was very clear. He said ' Right, we are not here to talk, we are here to watch television '.
Years after to 'keep up with the Collis's' my parents also bought a TV and there on, evening conversation in our home ceased. They had two arm chairs side by side facing the screen and there they sat, hour after hour. My sister and I could either perch somewhere and watch, or go to sit in the kitchen.
One night I fell off my pushbike and wrecked my knee. I hobbled home and hobbled in to the TV room saying ' Mum, I've really hurt myself'.Both parents waved for me to move aside since I was between them and the screen. My Mum mumbled ' just go to bed, will you '. In the morning my knee was the size of a football and I had to be taken to hospital.
One day the TV broke down and had to be sent away. It was great, we talked and played cards or board games, played old records and listened to comedies on the radio.
Then, I came home from school one day and there it was, flickering away in the corner. The TV was back and the family unit ceased to function again.
The quality of TV programmes was higher in those days and more innocent, but the result was much the same. Also, can you imagine how long an adult male would last these days, inviting batches of kids in to his home to sit in the dark in front of a TV.
Religion was once the opium of the masses, now it is the television.
George Orwell would smile bitterly at a format that seeks the most disturbed people possible, herds them together in a false house, built on a film set and full of camera's, gives these misfits ridiculous tasks and then calls the finished product ' Reality ' TV.
But, it keeps the population happy and compliant.
Peter Moore.
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It's a cycle that can be broken though Peter.
In my youth I used to be glued to certain programmes that I would never miss.
It happens that I changed my job to one with more unsociable hours and I never saw a TV programme for 3 years. When I got back to more usual hours I was really happy that I would again be able to follow my favourite shows on the TV.
Much to my surprise this didn't happen because when I started to watch them it dawned on me that were nothing but a load of crap so I turned the box off and went out to find real life with my mates.That's what I mean about breaking the cycle, it brings you back into perspective and makes you realise that TV is there to serve us, not to be our master.If you allow it to it will become your opium.
Now 40 odd years on and in the autumn of my life and sadly minus the wife I had spent 39 years with I find that I only turn the TV on to see what the latest news is and to switch between the various news channels to get a more ballanced view and then turn it off again.
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