“…Researchers at Syracuse University and State University of New York discovered that television programs almost never advocate reading books and lend the impression that one can get all the knowledge one needs from watching TV. They theorize this might be responsible for the finding that “young people who view greater amounts of television are more likely to have a decidedly low opinion of book reading as an activity.””
“Perhaps the medium itself, regardless of content, does damage.
Achievement and Intelligence Japanese researchers conducted some of the earliest research on the relationship between television and impaired academic achievement. In 1962, they published findings that reading skills declined among Japanese fifth to seventh graders as soon as their family acquired a television set.”
“… Across the board, even small amounts of television viewing hurt academic achievement.”
“In the famous 1854 debate between Abraham Lincoln and Stephen A. Douglas, Douglas led off with a three-hour opening statement, which Lincoln took four hours to rebut. During the televised presidential debates of 1987, each candidate took five minutes to address questions like “What is your policy in Central America?” before his opponent launched into a sixty-second rebuttal.(83) This sort of parody is as intellectually taxing a presentation as anyone will see on television.”
http://www.simpletoremember.com/articles/a/dangers-of-television/