It may be hard to admit, but television has become an intricate part of our everyday lives. People often find themselves sitting in front of the television screen for a longer period of time than ever before and this is due to the fact that television has evolved immensely over the past few years. Society is so addicted to television that it has become an issue. People are not aware of the dangers that television can inflict on the human mind and because of this people are becoming socially unproductive. Television shows have also evolved over the years as more and more TV shows resort to sex and violence to capture their audiences. These shows reflect negatively upon our younger viewers and it is becoming a problem. Despite all these negative aspects, there are however educational programs and television ads that benefit the viewers.
The definition of addiction is the condition of being habitually or compulsively occupied with or involved in something. Now the word addiction hasn’t always been commonly associated with television, but over the past years it is becoming more common. The average person spends about 1000 hours watching television each year. That’s equivalent to watching 24 hours of television a day for six weeks straight. Like a drug addict, a television addict thrives on a certain experience to get high. In this case the high is watching television. Winn states, “Something about that particular experience makes life without it less than complete” (505). A television addict doesn’t believe he can live life without television. Television addicts devote every waking hour to watching TV and some even revolve their whole life around it. These addicts live off the incredible experience they feel when watching television and because of this they are unable to stop.
People often use television as a scapegoat for the many problems that goes on in their own lives. They watch TV to live out the life they never had. Maria Winn explains, “…the television experience allows the participant to blot out the real world and enter into a pleasurable and passive mental state”(Winn 506). They are able to enter an imaginary television world as a place where they can forget about their troubles and live the perfect life they never had. Dove states, “It is not that we confuse TV with reality, but that we prefer it to reality…”(Dove 503-...
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...e one of the hardest things to shop for. Commercials can narrow down everything you need to know about the car in about thirty seconds or less. The use of commercials can help benefit everybody who watches.
Even though television has its benefits, the amount of negative aspects is just overwhelming. People are forgetting that watching too much television can be harmful to the human mind. It causes people to forget everything they know about the reality world and enter into the imaginary world. People are watching so much TV that they are becoming television addicts. These addicts devote their entire life to watching TV. These addicts aren’t even aware of the things that are going on around them. If people exerted the same amount of energy and time they spent watching TV to doing something useful the world would be a much healthier place for everyone.
Works Cited
Dove, Rita. “Loose Ends.” The McGraw-Hill Reader: Issues Across the Disciplines.
8th ed. Ed. Gilbert H. Muller. Boston: Mc-Graw Hill, 2003. 503-504
Winn, Maria. “Television Addiction.” The Mcgraw-Hill Reader: Issues Across the Disciplines. 8th ed. Ed. Gilbert H. Muller. Boston: Mc-Graw Hill, 2003. 505-07.
It may be hard to admit, but television has become an intricate part of our everyday lives. People children often find themselves sitting in front of the television screen for a longer period of time than before and this has evolved immensely over the past few years. In this article, “The Trouble with Television,” by the author Marie Winn, mentions that addiction of television is negative effects on children and families. It keeps the families from doing other things and it’s a hidden competitor for all other activities. Television takes place of play and on top of that kids who watch a lot of television grow uncivilized. Also, the author mentioned that televisions are less resourceful for children and have negative effects on children’s school achievement and on physical fitness. Although there are so many other types of addictions but the author Marie Winn’s points of argument of watching television is a serious addiction that our children and families have negative effects.
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.
Click. On goes the television, off goes your mind. Click. Boring. Click. Seen it. Click. It will do. Barbara Ehrenreich’s argument that television is corrupting social society is valid for the once great mode of communication has become a couch potato breeding machine.
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
Throughout the years, television has altered the lives of many American families in a number of ways. When television was first invented, it brought entertainment and togetherness into the homes of many Americans. However, during the course of years, television has caused turmoil in many American homes. Television has led to families being disconnected from one another and has caused a lack in family unity and tradition. It is crucial to ensure that a family maintains their togetherness and interaction with one another. However, many American families are so consumed into the depths of the unparallel force of the television universe that they have become unconscious and blind sighted by the harmful effects that television has caused them.
Primarily, the domination power television has on its viewers is incomparable to the one drugs have over their addicts. First, addicts to television are not dominated in the same level addicts to drugs are. Hamill says that television absorbs its viewers in the same way drugs absorb their users because both television and drugs cultivate asocial behaviors in people (63, 64). Departing from this idea, it may seem reasonable to say that addicts to television and drugs both portrait unsocial attitudes, but doesn't this happen with any other kind addiction? Here Hamill is isolating a generalization which intention is to proclaim an assumption to be true. In his example, Hamill explains how some Americans fight their loneliness by leaving their TV sets on as companion (63). Instead of support Hamill's idea this example shows how Americans fulfill their vacancy of company rather than how Americans become lonely due to television. Second, independent studies on television do not qualify to determine the relation betwe...
Ever since television was first introduced to America, it has changed the culture. It’s affected American families in positive and negative ways. Whether the television is big and bulky or thin and flat, everyone’s eyes seem to be glued to it. Television competes with other human interactions, such as talking to family and friends, school, church, etcetera. It’s shaped many things -- people’s opinions on different topics, people’s choices in an election, and people’s views on things like race and class. It’s changed the who the people in the American population are, and how other countries view us.
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.
The panoply of programs a television provides allows a viewer to search for new interests and inspires them to do new things. I, for one, can attest to this, as my knowledge of baseball was limited as a child, until one day I decided to watch a broadcast of the San Francisco Giants; now I am a baseball superfan with friends from all over the country who share in this interest, and also a softball player who exercises every day. I did not become a couch potato from my experiences with television, but rather, a happier, healthier
Riddle, K., Peebles, A., Davis, C., Xu, F., & Schroeder, E. (2017). The Addictive Potential of Television Binge Watching: Comparing Intentional and Unintentional Binges. Psychology Of Popular Media Culture, doi:10.1037/ppm0000167
Television is everywhere these days, not just in our living rooms but in bathrooms, kitchens, doctor's offices, grocery stores, airplanes, and classrooms. We have access to TV virtually anywhere and as American's we are taking advantaged of it. Adults aren't the only ones watching TV; children today are watching more TV than ever before. TV has even become known as "America's baby-sitter." (Krieg). Meaning that parents are now using the television as a way of entertaining their children while they attempt to accomplish other things such as cooking and cleaning.
According to experts, children who watch too much TV tend to be less interested in physical activity, often develop verbal skills more slowly and tend to be less confident in social situations.
In “Television Addiction” by Marie Winn, the author suggests that TV addiction and Drug and Alcohol addiction are similar in many ways. First she explains what she considers to be a serious drug addiction, such as not feeling normal without them, the need to repeat it, ignoring other pleasurable experiences, never being satisfied, damaging one’s life and ruining relationships. Then she asks us to consider the television addiction in the same light and explains why she feels that it should be. In my experience I can see how television viewing would be considered an addiction and why Winn would too. When someone allows an activity to negatively affect their productivity, relationships and
Television has become one of the major entertainment providers in our modern life. It sits in the living room of about almost every home in the world and it is the one thing that most people like to come home to after a long day of work or school. Not only does it give us something to laugh or get scared at but it also provides us with valuable information about what is happening around our local community and around different places in the world. But, as good as this sounds, Television may be affecting us without even realizing it. Being one of the major distractors in today 's society, it gets us attached to its content in which a lot of people spend a lot of their time watching. Being thus, watching too
One of the physiological effects of watching television in excessive amounts is eye-strain. It is true that there are specifications for watching television; television should be 5 m. away from the eye, the room should be adequately lit, television should be placed at the same height with our eyes, etc. However, these do not prevent our eyes from getting tired if we keep watching television for a long time. Another effect is obesity, which is widely observed in people who like watching television and eating snacks everyday (there is even a term “television snacks” to refer to fast food that is suitable for eating in front of the television). television is such a powerful machine that people cannot get away from it – it is addictive. Apart from the physiological effects, television also causes psychological effects. One is a result of being exposed to