TOM SNYDER: What would happen if you could shut off television for 30 days in the entire United States of America?
MARSHALL MCLUHAN: It would be a kind of hangover effect because it’s a very addictive medium and you take it away and people develop all the symptoms of a hangover. Very uncomfortable. It was tried, remember? A few years ago they actually paid people not to watch TV for a few months…. It was in Germany. It was in the UK. And they discovered they had all the withdrawal symptoms of drug addicts, very uncomfortable, all the trauma of withdrawal symptoms. TV is a very involving medium and it is a form of inner trip and so people do miss it.