As many people know modern television produces many good and bad consequences to the viewer. However, as a whole, the positive effects of TV clearly out weight the negative ones. In Barbara Ehrenreich’s passage, The Worst Years of Our Lives, she asserts that what’s being televised, immobilizes the viewer from actually doing the activities portrayed on TV. Yet, all the events on television have been imitated from what is going on in real life. Television is not something that drains a person from everyday activities, but something that encourages them to try new ones and escape the crazy, stressful moments of life. Not only is TV something that exemplifies new hobbies that can be taken on, but it is also a moment where a family can come together and laugh at all those funny moments in Full House and The Simpsons. Lastly, and possibly most importantly it informs people on what’s going on around …show more content…
She states that what is shown on TV these days are things that no longer occur because people are to busy watching television. However last time it was checked, people were drinking light beer at their local bar, police were chasing fast cars, and in dangerous occasions people were shooting each other at close range. All the ideas portrayed on television came from events that have happened in the world. The creators of these shows all derive their inspiration from things they’ve seen around them. For example, as a child Stephen Hillenburg, creator of SpongeBob, was fascinated with the ocean and later on became a marine biologist. Through his studies he believed that the weirdest sea creatures children could relate to would be the sea-sponge, starfish, crab, and squid. Another example of shows derived from the way society is set are two sitcoms Full House and Modern Family. Both of these sitcoms show how people in those time periods lived, dressed, and
As this suburban sprawl of the fifties took America by storm, Spiegel discusses how television provided a necessary means of escapism for frustrated families. The first television show, broadcast in 1949, was a very simple program in which a man and woman sit watching and discussing the TV. Although by today's standards this would be seen as unsurpassingly boring to audiences, this simple show provided a stress relief and easy entertainment; it seemed as though audiences enjoyed watching programs which, similar to their own situation, seemed more rewarding.
In her blog Bolick (2011) stated that “I grew up watching both I love Lucy and The Honeymooners and even as a child I always wondered why the wives on these shows didn’t have to work.” Women in television shows decades ago mirrored the roles women played in society. Yet, women in society, although they have made major progressions towards equality they are still portrayed as the housewife. For the first time, America has a woman running for President of the United States. But parents think that children do not have suitable role models because of what they see on television. Does that fault fall on producers of television shows and movies? Or on the parent for allowing the children to watch those shows? Children look up to people in their immediate presence the most, imitating what they see and are accustomed to the most. With the changes in of roles in television, however, society is still noticing the unimportant things. During a recent study conducted by “The Center for the Study of Women in Television & Film” Lauzen (2016) stated that “Moviegoers were more likely to know the occupation of male characters than female characters…… In addition, moviegoers were much more likely to see male characters at work and actually working than female characters.” What this shows is that people have become so accustomed to the way society ‘used to be’ that they pay attention to the details
In the article “TV’s Callous Neglect of Working- Class America” written by Noel Murray explains the modern day TV shows un-relatable plots to Americans today. Murray describes how shows in the ‘50s through the ‘90s were relatable to Americans and how they lived their lives. The TV shows then were able to get such great reviews because the jobs the actors had in the shows were average money making jobs. The characters are meticulously when it came to how they used the money they earned. However, as the years have passed, the shows that are on today are not as relatable to Americans. The shows express the fantasy, perfect life that everyone strives to have, but in reality, it is not possible for every family. The programs on today do not convey the difficulties that average Americans face each day, causing the shows to become more and more relatable to average TV viewers.
Barbara Ehrenreich, in The Hearts Of Men, illustrates how gender roles have highly constricted men, not just women, and therefore have inhibited American society from developing its full potential. She deviates from conventional wisdom, which says that gender roles have been largely detrimental to only half the population, which is simultaneously confined to working in the domestic sphere and prevented from participating in the public realm. Her theory says that Americans subscribe to a "sexuo-economic system" which reduces men to "mere earning mechanisms" and forces women to "become parasitic wives" (6, 4). As she explains, members of both sexes adhere to a system which forces them to succumb to specific gender roles, which in turn prevent them from becoming their true selves. Thus, every American has a vested interest in restructuring the ways men and women interact.
In the world today watching television is so addictive that everything else looks unattractive. The author argues that television is not lethal as drugs and alcohol but it can have many effects such as children getting more violent and reality seem second best. Every person lives are filled with emotions including anxiety, depression, and stress so after long hard work day the best medicine is to turn the television on and not to worry about anything. For example, I usually drive from site to site to take care of business. So when I return home from work I will sit on my couch and turn the television on and flick the channel until I fall to sleep. As Marie Winn describes, "the television experience allows the participant to blot out the real world and e...
In the article “TV’s Distorted Images” written by Tom Seibert talks about the powerful ways TV can affect the way people think. TV can ruin a person’s outlook on themselves, thinking, and acting. In “TV’s Distorted Images”, Seibert writes the changes in people’s lives and their self-awareness of how they live. Tom wrote his article in 1995 when TV was brought to Fiji with just one channel working. The young girls that he had talked to were all perfectly happy and healthy and lived life with the biggest smile until two high-rated TV shows became a part of their life. Once the girls started watching shows like Melrose Place and Beverly Hills 90210, they became self-conscious. The girls no longer enjoyed how they looked, believing they were overweight or not pretty.
In an article ' The Plug-In Drug ' the author Marie Winn discusses the bad influence of television on today's society. Television is a ' drug ' that interfere with family ritual, destroys human relationships and undermines the family.
In Steven Johnson’s article, Watching TV Makes You Smarter, Johnson illustrates the development of media over time and the change people are trying to make to television. Johnson argues over how the population watches bad TV shows over the good and how it is healthy for the human brain. Johnson compares older TV shows and present day TV shows to show the difference in
And she calls people on a program on the TV her “family.” Society didn’t want people to think, so they took out the thinking part. They took out the feeling in TV. What’s the point of watching TV if you can’t learn anything from it. I guess that old saying about a TV having the capability to ruin your mind is true. The big screen that people think must be a tool to brainwash people into thinking that they are actually needed in this world.
People no longer know how to make up ideas independently. An example of how their society has become so unintelligent is when Mildred explains to Montag how her favorite television show works. She tells him, ‘“When it comes time for the missing lines, they all look at me out of the three walls and I say the lines.”’ (20). This television show that Mildred, and many other people in their society adore, is much like the popular twenty-first century nickelodeon cartoon, Dora the Explorer, which is aimed for toddlers. In their society the television shows come with a script and they have to say a line when it is their turn; the characters will just wait until you respond to proceed (20). This is a very strong example of how people in this society are choosing to spend their free time doing things that are not productive. Instead of reading a book or learning a new language, these people will rather sit in their parlors and waste time, because they are so unaccustomed to thinking and contemplating things. Since no one wants to question things, and think critically, their society cannot possibly be able to
She said that our media climate mostly provides a very misleading mirror of our lives and of our gender, therefore, she emphasized there must be a change to that. Examples, of the media companies she highlighted are; television, radio, publishing, games, and so on. She said, they use a very stiff segmentation approach in order to understand their audiences. Which is an old school demographics, and end up coming up with these very restraining labels to define the public. In addition to that, is the media companies trust that if you fall within a certain demographic category then you are likely in certain ways, as well as having certain taste, and like certain things. (Blakely, September 29,
In the argumentative essay “T.V. Addiction” by Marie Winn, Winn relates watching television to having an addiction with drugs and alcohol. The television experience allows us to escape from the real world and enter into a pleasurable and peaceful mental state. When it comes to television, Marie asks the following question: Is there a kind of television viewing that falls into the more serious category of destruction addiction? I believe there is. Why do so many people, instead of doing what they’re supposed to be doing, put everything on hold and just focus on television? I think this is because they want an escape from their problems.
Throughout the book, McKibben compares the two experiences, contrasting the amount of useful information he received from nature, as opposed to the amount of useless, hollow information the television provided. He goes on in the book to make several very important observations about how the television has fundamentally changed our culture and lifestyle, from the local to the global level. Locally, McKibben argues, television has a detrimental effect on communities.
In Barbara Ehrenreich’s “The Worst Years of Our Lives,” Ehrenreich denounces the American population’s obsession with television and the resulting decline of activity in the 1950s. Although Ehrenreich is correct that the popularity of television causes the American public to spend more hours in front of the television, what she fails to mention is that television goes beyond cheesy sitcoms and spicy dramas, and serves a greater purpose in society by educating the public and exposing them to new experiences. Television does not turn the American public into “couch potatoes” or “root vegetables,” but rather educates and inspires the public.
In Neil Postman’s book “Amusing Ourselves to Death” we take an in depth look at how different forms of media and technology have transformed our world and our society. He more specifically wanted to point out the dangers and issues that our society faces because of our fixation on television. I think that Posman’s fears should be acknowledged and taken into consideration because television impacts us a lot more than we would like to admit.