The Department of Health and Human Services is spending $2,797,979 on a study that brings television to more than a dozen remote villages in Vietnam to study its impact on their culture and reproductive behavior.
“In cooperation with the Vietnam government, we have selected 14 villages in a remote, mountainous area of Vietnam that currently lacks electricity,” according to the grant description for ‘Television and International Family Change: A Randomized Experiment.'
“Treatment villages will receive televisions and generators with gasoline to operate the televisions. Control villages will not receive generators or televisions.”
I think the key word in that title is "Randomized."
Next thing you know these poor people in remote Vietnamese villages will be hooked on Downton Abbey and Honey Boo Boo and then who knows what will happen.
They're only getting four channels:
“One is really a news channel, one is a sports channel, one is a mix of entertainment and a little bit of education. For example, ‘if I was a farmer, what should I feed my pig to make my pig healthy?’ kind of things, and then the fourth channel is also a mix of entertainment and news,” Jayakody says.If only I got channels about pigs on my DirectTV, but no, I get Wives With Knives and Rodeo Girls. I try to ignore my television most of the time.
Apparently we have no other pressing needs here at home for $2.5 million bucks.
Pat
ReplyDeleteAs I recall there was a study like this from the early 1970s. An Eskimo Tribe in Canada or Alaska was finally getting TV and the usual suspects wanted to see how this would affect them. The results, increase in violence, etc. Don't remember the details but it's something I do recall the introduction of TV to the area had some serious downsides.