cultural barbiturate

English

Noun

cultural barbiturate

1. (slang, derogatory, uncommon) Synonym of television
   • 1990, Paul Rutherford, When Television was Young, Primetime Canada, 1952-1967, page 423:

     Why should so much of television be a cultural barbiturate, a tranquilizer for the ills and anxieties of our age?

   • 2002, Marie Winn, The Plug-In Drug - Television, Computers, and Family Life, page 36:

     Critics mockingly refer to television as a "cultural barbiturate" and joke about "mainlining the tube."

   • 2005, Robert Stein, Media Power, Who Is Shaping Your Picture of the World?, page 23:

     For almost a quarter of a century, the medium has been used, in the words of Jack Gould of the New York Times, as a "cultural barbiturate" that "kills time efficiently and economically".