https://oshofriends.com/dictionary/70020Television
Before TV happened, down the centuries, people had never looked into a source of light for five hours continuously. Now the scientists say that the whole nervous system changes because of those five hours of looking directly into the source of light. The TV goes on throwing strong rays on your eyes. It has never happened before. Five hours is too much. Scientists may if you sit near a color TV, four feet away, you will get cancer, you will suffer from many diseases which your parents had not known, ever. The eyes are eighty percent of your life. Five hours of just strong light rays reaching into your head -- your sleep will be disturbed. If America suffers from insomnia, it is natural. The TV is one of the basic causes.
Ordinarily man has lived with light, natural light. In a primitive society, the sun rises, people rise, and the sun sets and people set, people go to sleep. A natural rhythm with light. Now we are living too much with the light; the eyes are not made for that much light. The inner nervous system is disturbed; it becomes too loaded.
And a thousand and one things will happen. In America a new phenomenon is happening. Many places it has happened, and people have become really worried about it, what to do? In one place a woman was murdered, and twenty persons were standing there, almost paralyzed, not doing anything. A psychological investigation was done. What is the matter? Twenty young, healthy people standing there, and a woman was killed just in front of them and they didn't do anything -- they didn't even shout, they didn't call the police. What happened? And you will be surprised. The finding is that it is because these twenty people have lived on TV for too long.
On the TV screen murder happens so many times. What do you do? You don't do anything; you remain glued to your chair. They have become accustomed to it. It was another TV scene. They have lost track of reality. The TV has become more real. For five hours you are not with anything else -- and a continuous bombardment of light, and strong light, and things are moving in your head. You become a watcher. They were standing there juSt glued to their spots, paralyzed -- just watching. They could not do anything, because they are no more doers.
-Osho, "The First Principle, #10"
