At Highway Mail, we found something fascinating that we thought you may enjoy taking a peak at – we unearthed some archived Highway Mail papers from the 50s, 60s and 70s. Sub-editor Kathy Bosman will showcase some of these old articles and look at how things have changed since then in the community, the area and the world at large. This week, we are shining the light on the yellowed pages of the March 14, 1958 edition of Highway Mail, on an article that calls television a ‘social menace’.
The article is about when Mr Harold Neden, a BBC radio producer, visited a couple, Mr and Mrs Keppoch Macdonald – yes, in those days, the women were spoken of under their husbands’ names – in the Cowie’s Hill area for tea and a chat about broadcasting. A councillor, Mrs Nora Dales, and a Miss Rose Alper were also guests at the tea. Neden had visited South Africa previously to help produce some operas on the SABC radio. He enjoyed the sunshine.
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Television hadn’t yet come to South Africa, and Neden shared his opinion on the technology with his hosts. He called the form of entertainment a ‘social menace’. The article says, “Mr. Neden described television as a social menace and great conversation killer although he agreed that it was a good way of entertaining people you did not know or with whom you had no common interests.”
The phrase ‘a social menace’ induces a chuckle when you look at how the older generation nowadays consider things like cellphones, the internet and online games a social menace and conversation killer among young people. Memes are found on social media of young people buried in their cellphones, not even talking to each other when they’re out together. Articles and blogs are spread advising parents on how to limit screen time.
This quote from 1958 just reminds us that the generation gap still stands even when times change – that parents long for their children and teens to communicate more with them and in a more mature way – that they wish their youth weren’t buried behind the latest entertainment devices.
When I looked up when television (TV) came to South Africa, I came across some interesting information on the SABC’s website about why the start of it was so delayed. We only got TV in 1976 because the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs, Dr Albert Hertzog, said the following about it: TV is ‘a miniature bioscope [cinema] over which parents would have no control’. Even worse, Hertzog was concerned that black people would realise how bad things were for them if they saw how black people in other countries were treated and integrated into general society. The SABC itself was concerned that the English programmes would bring negative competition to the Afrikaans press. But no one agreed with Hertzog, especially after most of the world saw the moon landing on TV and South Africa missed it.
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When TV began in 1976, there was only one channel that broadcast both English and Afrikaans shows. In 1981, another channel was brought out that broadcast some African languages, such as Zulu, Xhosa, Sotho and Tswana. Nowadays, we have DSTV, Netflix, Showmax, Open View, and other streaming services. And we have the internet, tablets, smart watches, smart TVs, cellphones, iPads, VR – the list goes on and is growing. The online gaming industry is a multi-billion-dollar enterprise that is now more lucrative and popular than TV and movie streaming services. According to the website, Statista, the gaming industry is ‘projected to reach US$221.40b in 2023’. The Things Have Changed website says that gaming now surpasses both Hollywood and the music industry in revenue. Will gaming kill the TV star like ‘Video killed the radio star’ (from the album, The Age of Plastic by The Buggles, 1980)?
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