Opiate of the Pupil

In Snyder, N.Y. (pop. 18,000), an upper-middle-class suburb of Buffalo, a school survey found that kindergarten tots are at their TV sets roughly half as much time (14.2 hours a week) as in their classrooms, but as pupils grow up to the sixth grade they devote almost equal time to school (27 1/2 hours a week) and televiewing (26 hours a week). Other findings: P: Offered a choice, 51% of the children would prefer a sound spanking to a parental blackout of their favorite program. P: Parents must threaten or nag 43% of the youngsters to wrench them from TV at mealtimes, 46% at bedtime.

Concluded a school official: "Television is changing American children from irresistible forces into immovable objects."

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