Every so often, someone comes up with a Scary Movie where the villain is The Box. In his paper "How Television is (quite literally) killing us", Dr Aric Sigman, Associate Fellow of the British Psychological Society, Member of the Institute of Biology, presented some spine-chilling data.
Having analysed reams of studies from government agencies across the world, including Harvard and Stanford medical schools, the Royal College of Psychiatrists, the Chinese Centre for Disease Control and Prevention, the National Academy of Sciences and the American Medical Association, he actually goes as far as to label television "the greatest health scandal of our time".
He cites irrefutable proof that even watching television in amounts that may by no stretch of the imagination be considered inordinate, one opens oneself to a whole gamut of disorders.
Television, he says, may stunt and damage brain cell development and function, and biologically trigger puberty prematurely by affecting the body's production of melatonin since this is effected by the bright light emitted through the screen. It contributes to obesity even more than do eating junk food and taking no exercise, combined.
This is partly because it causes hormonal changes that in turn increase body fat production and appetite. It is the only adult pastime from the ages of 20 to 60 positively linked to developing myopia and Alzheimer's disease, and increases the risk of developing Type II diabetes mellitus. Moreover, it leads to sleep problems in adulthood, damages the immune system and may lead to a greater vulnerability to cancer. It is also a major independent cause of clinical depression.
This study went way beyond those that linked the couch potato syndrome with AD(H)D in children, where for every hour of television a child watched by age seven, there was an average of nine per cent increase in attention-related damage.
It even surpassed the report in Paediatrics, which had studied the metabolic rates of 31 children as they undertook a variety of activities - and ironically found that when they watched television, their basal metabolic slowed down such that they burned the equivalent of 211 calories fewer per day than if they did absolutely nothing.
The study went in to link the arrival of television in some countries (such as Tonga and Bhutan) with a burgeoning crime rate where it was previously practically unknown.
By the time we are 75, most of us would have spent more than twelve-and-a-half years of 24-hour days watching television. The mind boggles; some children spend more time on screen-based activities per day, than they spend in school.
So much, then, for purchasing a child his very own television set "for media literacy and educational purposes", or, bluntly, as a status symbol or to keep him out of the hair of the rest of the family. One or two hours' screen time a day is enough to start this downward spiral.
We have recommended times for exposure to direct sunlight; health warnings attached to cigarette packets; ingredients panels and expiry dates for foods, an ideal body mass index chart and alcohol limits.
Yet the electronic babysitter retains its innocuous, insidious sovereignty.
The opportunity to interview a bishop is thrown at us maybe once in a lifetime. In last Tuesday's edition of Waltzing Matilda, however, Josephine Zammit Cordina managed to do this, relatively speaking, twice over.
Bishop Joe, as he is colloquially known, lives in Bendigo in Victoria, Australia. His Grace Joseph Grech, Bishop of the diocese of Sandhurst, is the Prelate of the People, as is evinced by both his nickname and the way his parishioners speak of him. At the time of the interview, fourth year seminarian Robert Galea was on a "working holiday".
Archbishop Paul Cremona was also featured in this programme.
During a courtesy call on the Australian High Commissioner, Archbishop Cremona conveyed a welcome message to the Maltese community in Australia.
The rest of the programme was as usual chock-full of items related to our families and friends abroad; I know for a fact that each edition of both Waltzing Matilda and the radio programme Il-Boomerang are eagerly awaited by our expatriates, since they provide by far the best links with the motherland they could ever have.
A programme that did not follow its usual format this week was Net's Haddiehor, presented by Marthese Brincat. Contrary to the usual praxis of treating two topics, this week there was just one: Is Divorce the Solution?
There was a scintillating discussion among the panel. Marselle Delicata and her husband Servolo, who are president couple of the Diocesan Family Commission, equated divorce statistics with chaos and social poverty. Anna Mercieca, speaking as a single married person, reiterated that the State must look out for people in her situation, and any children they may have, since being single - and suffering from the resultant stigma - would not necessarily have been their choice.
Dr Anthony Rutter Giappone focused on the need to promote a marriage into which one enters with both eyes - and even the third one - wide open. The resident spiritual director of the programme, Fr Marcello Ghirlando, reminded us all that what God has united, man ought not to try and tear asunder. As Fr Peter Serracino Inglott said, the erstwhile "nuclear" family has imploded, and children need to relearn and reassess what it means to be a part of a unit.