Television: The Double-blade Sword
PSU #: 991574819
ESL015: 002
December 10th, 2009
Television: the Double-blade Sword
It is hard to imagine people’s everyday life without a television set nowadays, television has become our indispensable partner. But some people think that television is so close to our everyday life that it has actually brought endless problems to us, through watch massive television, children would lack the connection with real life, family communication time would be reduced, and so on. However, many of the problems seemed caused by television actually have nothing to do with television itself, as long as people use the time rationally, chooses the content correctly and utilize television properly, television would definitely turn to a tool to improve the quality of family life.
Many people believe that television should not be included in everyday life, due to the fact that wasting time on television watching will reduce the quality of family. Yet, refuse to use television also means rejected the many benefits that brought in from television. Massive television watching does have a negative effect on children’s thought, language, imagination, emotions and social behaviors. In Marie Winn's article “Television: the Plug-in Drug,” the author talked about the impact of television on children’s growth and the relationship between family members. The writer pointed out that those children viewing TV alone while real life goes on elsewhere actually made them lack some basic skills, such as the ability to make friends or dislike outdoor exercises(Winn, 2008). As a matter of fact, even though it that the incalculable influence of television cannot be denied, parents should have deeper and broader understanding that the massive information and the irritation of television on children could actually turn to a useful tool to benefit children. Based on the Fashion Baby magazine (2009) website, the nursing specialists took a follow-up survey with 2000 families, the results show that the infants first learn to concentrate on the voice due to the interesting and electronic sound from television, and would start their first initial association because of the colorful and changing images on the screen (2009). Thus, television can said to be children's first teacher in the process of their grown up. As an example, a picture of people bouncing ball happily on the screen would directly stimulate the child in front of the television, he will also pick up the ball around him and begin his first try. What’s more, enormous information and knowledge on television is a powerful database for learning, TV can be considered as known everything in heaven above and the earth underneath, no matter what the child’s interest is, and he can acquire knowledge from television easily. In this way, television would not only be the children's first teacher, it also helps children in the cognitive aspects of growth. Even though it seems that television is a good helper for the youth, some people still judge that watching television would reduce the family communication time.
Wasting time on television watching is always been regarded as reducing the time for family communication. However, it is not watching television that affected the communication within the family, but the parents’ misconduct that brought up problems. Some parents would watch different television show than their children, which leads children to different lifestyle, thus parents and children would lack the same topic to discuss. Winn (2008) wrote in her article, “Who could have guessed that twenty or so years later Mom would be watching a drama in the kitchen, the kids would be looking at cartoons in their room, while Dad would be taking a ball game in the living room?” (p. 231). The article shows that watching different content not only made the family spend less time together, the interaction between family
