What's especially interesting about this information is that it comes at a time when television is more invasive than ever. Many American homes have large-screen TVs in the living room and smaller sets in the children's rooms. Bars and restaurants feature looming TV images that are impossible to ignore. Tiny little hand-held sets enable fans to take Howard Stern along wherever they go. Minivans are being outfitted with TV monitors to keep small passengers quiet.
Health clubs have banks of screens in front of the treadmills and stair climbers.
Even hospital waiting rooms, which ban smoking as hazardous to your health, have soap operas blaring in the foreground. Sometimes it seems there is no escape, that our entire nation has become a couch potato's entertainment center. But now, armed with this new information about the brain-cell bill that might come due in our golden years, I expect that we Americans will move with our usual lightning speed to pull out of this collision course. I predict a spate of helpful TV reports, maybe even a four-part series with Dan Rather and Mike Wallace, detailing the dangers that lie ahead. They will rivet our attention as we sit there, immobile, taking it all in.