A warning to kids about the shocking things your parents watch on TV

A couple months ago, when my parents came to look after me after my brain went haywire (or I fell, depending on which theory you prefer), my mom left some of her morning routines behind. She bought some good tea (much better than what I was drinking), some Activia (which, it's pipe-cleaning qualities aside, is by far the best yogurt I've tasted in my life), and left behind the Today show, which I've been watching more often than not in my morning routine.

My mom's watched the Today show for years, so I've always had a soft spot for it in spite of it's obvious flaws (which, clearly, I'll get to). Plus, it's all amounts of more tolerable now that Katie Couric's off the show, and nowhere near as bad as other shows like Good Morning, America, which I had to watch for a week last year for work, and one way or another, I will get those hours tacked back on to my life. Mark my words.

Besides the waving idiots outside the studio and the unbelievably corny jokes, my reunion with the Today show has produced one main gripe: the fear-planting. It's nothing that new, really. News shows (especially the local ones) of all kinds have made a business of pointing out dangers that you may not know about: exploding ice trays, elementary school kids who could have bombs strapped to them and not know it, aftershave that is more than 50% rat poison...we've heard it.

The big morning shows, though, do the alarming in one of two ways. The first is that they take a common phenomenon and make it out to me a shocking new trend that threatens to unbalance society. I couldn't believe it a few weeks ago when they were talking about this new trend called "hooking up". At first, I figured I was just getting more out of touch and that the term "hooking up" had changed and maybe it now it had something to do with fishing, but no: it's just relationship-free sex with someone you probably don't know very well. Maybe it's never been the best idea, sure, but new? Shocking? Lessening women's chance of ever getting married (like the Today folks want you to believe)? Um...not really.

The other kind of alarm is the one where they take an infrequent occurrence and make it sound as though it's sweeping the nation. This morning, they had one of their "an important warning to parents about your kids" segments (which they seem to have at least once a show, it seems) about "the choking game" in which they claimed that tons of teens (of course) all over the nation are strangling themselves to unconsciousness (and in one case, death) for a high. Of course, Today was there with warning signs about how to know your kids are doing this: marks on their necks, thuds on their floor (I'm not making this up), carrying a noose in their back pockets and that they're complete morons who don't know the difference between life and death. Okay, those last two are mine.

In all seriousness, I think that these spots do more harm than good. The first kind is relatively harmless, but still encourages viewers to judge and look down on a practice or way of thinking that's already established and they only know from a five minute segment. The second is just stirring up parents. I suppose there's a case to be made that parents should at least be informed, but do they have to be informed in such a hysterical way? I pity the kids who will be getting home from school today to "I need to ask you something: you aren't strangling yourself for fun, are you?" I especially pity the teenage boys who momentarily misunderstand what their Moms mean by "strangling".

In short: you may think your life is fine, but it is not. You need a lot more panic in your life. And I know just the place for you to find things to panic about.