Is Television a Good or Bad Influence? Essay

In the year of 1926 a man called John Lougie Baird had invented something that has become part of the day-to-day lifestyle of nearly everyone. He had successfully tested it in a laboratory in late 1925 and unveiled with much fanfare in London in early 1926, and later mechanical television was quickly usurped by electronical television. Over the years television has developed greatly, going from black and white to coloured and ranging greatly in size. From portable and hand held televisions to widescreen and flat widescreen televisions, there is a choice to suit everyone. The most recent additions to this can vary from VCR’s to DVD’s to play stations and other games consoles. Also there are numerous networks, which you can choose from, such as ITV digital, cable, sky digital, etc. In this world today, there are people out there that think television is fantastic and that there is nothing out there that could spoil a nice, quiet night in, with a nice warm cup of coffee with their feet up in front of the television while there are others who don’t feel so strongly. They would rather smash that cup of coffee off the television. If you think that’s very extreme, think again, because there are people today that think television is the worst invention ever. There are some people with a point of view that television is a good influence. They think this because they think that television teaches children to be creative which is shown in documentaries and educational programmes. Maybe so, but do these people realise that the more time they spend watching television, the more time they’re taking out of their own social life and the more closer they are to becoming addicted to it. Do they know that two out of three network prime time shows illustrate some sort of sexual situation or dilemma between a couple, according to a study released in February 1999, by the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation, showed that only three percent of sitcoms discussed any of the risks and responsibilities associated with sex drugs and violence. Do they also know that foul language has increased on these shows and words absent on television ten years ago are now cropping up in more commonly in the scripts of characters on soaps and on every network? Would you want your children to grow up using bad language as part of their everyday speech? No definitely not I would ponder, If you ask my opinion, I would say that yes, television does teach children to be creative, but not in a good sense. With television progressing at this rate and filling up with more violence, sex and strong language which is easily accessed, these circumstances can be avoided by ensuring that children take part in more sports such as football, swimming, running, cycling and lots of others and watch less television. Also do you think that a, elderly person would watch a film happily that consists of a lot of violence and strong language? Television could that very strong impact on the elderly if maybe they watch too much of it. It could deprive them of their social life and watching too much television could lead an old woman or man into a deep depression, which could have very serious and, maybe even fatal consequences such as laziness and lack of exercise. Other views are that television s a bad influence especially on the younger generation maybe because there is too much violence and bad language which could have an affect on them and also on older people as they may cause offence, Maybe people think that living in this world means you are inclined anyway to seeing and hearing all this violence and bad language. There are views that it keeps children out of trouble and other views that it discourages play in younger children but they think that they are better off keeping their children inside than letting them out all the time and having a better chance of getting into trouble. I personally think that television is a bad influence on people of all ages. Violence on television affects children negatively, according to psychological research. The three major effects of seeing violence on television are that children may become less sensitive to the pain and suffering of others, children may be more fearful of the world around them and children may be more likely to behave in aggressive ways towards others. It is a fact that the average American child will have watched one hundred thousand acts of television, including eight thousand depictions of murder, by the time he or she finishes sixth grade, which is approximately thirteen years old. If you think wall to wall violence on television has no effect, why would you imagine that one-minute adverts in the breaks do have an effect and may pursued you to buy something? We live in an era where both parents are often working and children have more unsupervised time they mainly use this time to watch television. It is necessary that time is made for the younger generation to keep up with their day to day experiences, including while they are at school, if they attend school. Studies have shown that children’s television shows contain about twenty violent acts each hour. They also showed that children who watch a lot of television are more likely to think that the world is a mean and dangerous place for cold and heartless people. In 1960, a man embarked on a landmark longitudinal study of over eight hundred eight-year-olds. He found that children who watched many hours of violent television tended to be more aggressive in the playground and the classroom. The same man checked back with these students eleven and twenty two years later. He found out that the aggressive eight-year-olds grew up to be aggressive nineteen-and thirty year-olds, with greater troubles – including domestic violence and more traffic tickets – than their less aggressive counterparts who did not watch as much television. And the researchers found that even if a child is not aggressive at the age of eight, but watches substantial amounts of violent programming, he or she tends to be more aggressive at nineteen than his or her peers who didn’t watch violent T.V. This just goes to show that television does have an affect on children at a young age, if not at that present time, and then it would take place in the future. Television also has effects on teenagers. A new study concludes that teenagers who watch more than an hour of television a day are more likely to be violent in later years. They are more likely to watch T.V if there is something on that interests them, no matter what the context, and most of these people have TV’s in their bedrooms which make it possible to watch TV to all hours, so their parents don’t have a say in what they watch really. Soaps like Coronation Street and Eastenders show young adults becoming pregnant and sometimes stealing cars and taking drugs and it all seems so easy and normal which could resort to some of these young adults taking part in doing these actions themselves and thinking that this is normal. For the elderly, television can most definitely have a bad influence. For example if an elderly woman sat and watched T.V all day, she could become sick, if she is not having her proper day to day exercise could lead to stiffness and aching joints. It could also cause stress if maybe a man seen the troubles in the news, such as the events of September 11th 2001 where two hijacked aircrafts were flew into the world trade centres of New York which caused the loss of thousands of lives and the destruction of the buildings themselves it could worry them and make them think that they should be out there doing something about it. That very day many people joined the US army as a result of television influencing them to do so. Also the United States are in another complication with Iraq over biological weapons the stories which are being stated on the news are very motivating and provoking and would make you feel that something has to be done about these problems. So television has become a bad influence to young children but also it has become a tool really for alerting the world of what is going but also advertising and provoking to adults and the elderly.