Don't Touch That Button!

For many years, married couples have found themselves at odds with one another over the remote control. Who has the remote? Where is the remote? Who keeps control of the remote? Did you hide the remote? Did you mess up the programming on the remote? Did you break the remote?

Can a Remote Control Undermine Your Marriage?

The issue of the location of the remote and who has the remote is not a new issue. According to scholars studying television viewing and the impact on marriage and families, the answer is yes. A remote control can undermine your marriage.

A remote control device or RCD can be a tool of control in a marriage. With just the push of a button, a spouse has a lot of control over what is watched on television. Additionally, with control of the remote, channels can be changed or flipped through, the sound can be turned louder or lower or muted, movies on the DVD player can be started or stopped, commercials can be eliminated, and the television can be turned off.

In 1992 John Ritter and Pam Dawber starred in Stay Tuned, a movie that took a satirical look at marriage and television viewing.

In 1993 journalist Ellen Goodman described the remote control as "the most reactionary implement currently used to undermine equality in modern marriage."
Source: Alexis J. Walker, "Couples Watching Television: Gender, Power, and the Remote Control." UHCL.edu
also published in Journal of Marriage and the Family, Vol. 58, No. 4 (Nov., 1996), pp. 813-823

More recently, a device has been marketed that will jam a remote control or give control of the remote to the person holding the jamming device.

In 2001, Walter Gantz identified "potentially contentious issues, including the following: the amount of time devoted to watching television, when the television is turned on and off, the specific programming viewed, and the way in which television programs and commercial matter are watched (e.g., uses of the remote control when commercials are aired) ... Remote control devices serve as a source of coviewing tension as well, as varying patterns of use (sometimes deliberately) create friction amoung coviewers (Walker, Bellamy, & Traudt, 1993)."
Source: Walter Gantz, "Conflicts and Resolution Strategies Associated With Television in Marital Life", in J. Bryant & J.A. Bryant (Eds.), Television and the American Family, pgs 289-290.

POLL:

How Do You Handle the Remote Control Battle?

1) We have two remotes.

2) We watch one show while we record/save another show.

3) We have separate televisions.

4) I ignore it.

5) I hide the remote.

6) We got rid of the television.

7) We don't have a remote control battle.

8) We have a different solution.

View Poll Results

Our answer -- we have two remotes and a sense of humor.