Modern Television

4 Pages 879 Words

Modern television trends are provocative and revealing enough to cause our ancestors to roll over in their graves but the main question deals with television’s effects on the living. In the article “Is mayhem TV harming your health” (Louv B-7) Richard Louv discusses how TV can indeed harm one’s health or at least their understanding of the world. It is said that gory television can provoke those who watch to act similarly and it is also said that consistently violent daily news can arouse a person to make severe misconceptions about the well-being of the world. Television is a major vehicle for many things such as learning, advertising, and informing, but in order to assure satisfaction and benefit to the viewer, one must monitor their television experience and evaluate its strengths and weaknesses. Television is a positive means of intellectual development for children and adults alike, but it is to be used in moderation because of its ability to misconstrue reality.

First off, television is the hallmark of keeping children occupied by way of fun colors and bright cartoons that incorporate learning into watching a program. In early development there is no substitution for television. I could not picture growing up as a child without my daily fix of “Sesame Street”. Big Bird’s knowledge, Elmo’s curiosity, and the Count’s arithmetic allowed me to think independently at a young age. Children are smarter today due to advances in teaching and technology. Therefore, it would be unfavorable to deprive a child of watching wholesome educational television. A friend of Richard Louv of the San Diego Union-Tribune, who recently got rid of his only household television states “We’re frazzled sometimes without our electronic babysitter…” (Louv B-7) and I can imagine the difficulty trying to fill the void. Besides using the television as an “electronic babysitter”, adults can also use television to further t...