Television Draft #3

In recent years, especially in the United States; laziness has become a growing epidemic. One of the causes of this "plague" is television, people have been extremely preoccupied with this form of entertainment so much so that it is currently the most time consuming activity in a child's life, other then sleeping. Teens on average watch 28 hours of T.V. a week. Children become so riveted by the special affects and fast paste action that school and academic learning become boring and no longer gain the attention they deserve. Television, today, detracts from the thinking process by distracting people from their responsibilities, it diminishes the search for information and the usefulness of this knowledge, and forms bad habits from an early age.


By placing special effects, romance, actions, and manipulating people's emotions television has come to draw people away from beneficial and necessary activities. Soap operas, sitcoms, and other shows spark curiosity, change electrical impulses in the brain and cause people to react in the way intended. By attracting curiosity and changing the electrical impulses in the brain television can put people in a hypnotic and addictive state, it does this by changing the frequency of electrical impulses causing a block for the mental process. The only way television could draw the population into this hypnotic state, is that hook, something that civilians relate to, that pleases them, and interests them; grabbing their recognition so that T.V. can consume the full attention of the viewer. In this hypnotic state impulses are created that allow the person to feel as if they are the ones experiencing what they are watching on T.V. Because of this addictive entertainment many people have veered off their intended paths and neglected important and essential duties. Students now spend six times the amount of time they spend on homework watching T.V., resulting in a decrease in the quality of work and standard grades. People have also been know to schedule their activities around their favorite programs decreasing the amount of time that could be reserved for more productive actions. By taking over the majority of citizen's time, they no longer have many opportunities to find and use information.

Basic skills and the knowledge of the application of those skills aren't developed with out practice and if the initiative hasn't been taken to understand and find new information. People no longer "have" the time to find and use information. Yes educational programs provide a lot of helpful knowledge, but what they do not do is provide an opportunity to apply this information into everyday life. People are also less able to concentrate on a tasks that don't grasp their attention by special effects and high tension situations, but provide useful information. Television has replaced leisurely reading and the development of more advanced motor skills. Reading helps expand the vocabulary and opens up a well of education in which to pull from. By detracting from this useful past time, the mental process is depleted. Thus through transitive, television detracts from the mental process. Television also detracts from the application of deductive reasoning, because this activity requires patients and slow persistence (which television doesn't promote in the least nor does it help the practice of this skill). In fact television doesn't promote many beneficial practices, which prove to be productive towards the general thinking process.

Television develops bad habits from an early age by nullifying the practices necessary to the development of young impressionable brains. Many children sit in front of the T.V. at an early age exposed to confusing scenes in an already foreign and difficult to understand world. These scenes only keep their attention by adding in high volume as well as bright and attractive lights, not interesting them in the actual content of what they are watching. Educational shows targeted for young age groups, i.e. Sesame Street, can be beneficial and help with the development of motor skills, yet in limited quantities. The most developmental activities which help young children are conversational activities. And if television pulls away from these helpful teachings motor, concentration, and listening skills will severely suffer. By watching T.V. children become more focused on visual representations and require big and loud actions to attract their attention, which makes it more difficult for teachers in the class room. Studies have also shown that people who watched less television as children ended up watching less in their future and as a result acquired much better grades and preformed at a higher quality in academic endeavors.

On a whole television severely detracts from educational processes, and pull away from mental activities. It attacks the body's defenses by adding in obtrusive auditory and visual stimulations as the body gets used to these attacks homework and other informational puzzles, especially as they increase in difficulty, become extremely frustrating to concentrate on. It is best to catch this addiction at an early age and limit the amount of time spent on T.V. so that the population can grow to its fullest.

Television Draft#2

In recent years, especially is the United States; laziness has become a growing epidemic. One of the causes of this plague is television, a box that captures our full attention without fail. People become obsessed with the lives of celebrities, imaginary love, wars, and luxuries. Televisions, today, detracts from the thinking process; it does this by distracting people from their responsibilities, it slows the search for information, and draws people into materialistic society.

By appealing to the viewer through theirs emotions, television draws people in so that they forget their duties. Programs are packed full of action, previously unknown sites, drama, and more either desirable or horrific worlds. These soap operas, sitcoms, and other shows spark our curiosity, makes laugh or cry, and they even relate to our everyday lives. Yet, when people get wrapped up in this form of entertainment many things can become neglected, and people can become focused on the lives of others, rather then their own life. It has also become a habit for some to schedule duties around their favorite programs, detracting from time in which they could be getting things done, such as work, exercising, or reading, actually using their brains. Some people have even been known to drive recklessly just to make it home in time for a program, neglecting their duties of the road and endangering everyone around them. Television fills time that could be used to exercise your brain, find a hobby or learn something new.

Basic knowledge and common sense aren’t developed if no initiative has been taken to understand and find new information. Even the search for new facts has slowed because of television. People no longer have to use time and to find the things that they need, it’s all just laid out for them. Yes there may be some beneficial points to this, but through the process of finding information people learn things they didn’t expect and develop skills that will help them in life. Beneficially, T.V. opens the population to information that they didn’t know they didn’t know, unveiling a wealth of knowledge that would have gone undiscovered. The shows that do this are some shows that air on the History Channel, The Discovery Channel, and other programs that may hold beneficial knowledge. Yet, these channels, though they may help in some ways, still pull people away from the library for example, and allow people to not have to work or use common sense to find this new intelligence. Other channels open the majority of people to what they believe they need, and these are usually the shows that are the most popular.

These “needs” are crammed into this country, so that citizens change their values from accomplishment, wisdom, and happiness to money and beauty. T.V. is full of commercials, infomercials, and subliminal messages, which make the majority of the population, believe that they “need” objects, money, and sex to fill our desires. Though these shallow requests look good on the surface, what people are forgetting is the way that the accomplished obtain these things. People who have obtained the desires, so vividly projected on screens, have set themselves apart from the couch potatoes, by taking the time and self will to work towards their dreams. The public needs to understand that while people sit and watch their favorite show, society in slyly placing advertisement and shallow needs into their conscience unbeknownst to them.

All in all television does detract from the thinking process because it doesn’t require you to think. T.V. is just there, a short lived happiness nothing substantial to offer. It has been proven to reduce productivity and promote laziness. These consequences are the last thing our public needs. This country is literate and intelligent enough, to be able to ignore television and find out the things we need to know, by ourselves and with out further assistance.

Television (5 paragraph essay)

In recent years, especially is the United States; laziness has become a growing epidemic. One of the causes of this plague is television, a box that captures our full attention without fail. People become obsessed with the lives of celebrities, imaginary love, wars, and luxuries. Televisions, today, detracts from the thinking process; it does this by distracting people from their responsibilities, it slows the search for information, and draws people into materialistic society.

By appealing to the viewer through theirs emotions, television draws people in so that they forget their duties. Programs are packed full of action, previously unknown sites, drama, and more either desirable or horrific worlds. These soap operas, sitcoms, and other shows spark our curiosity, makes laugh or cry, and they even relate to our everyday lives. Yet, when people succumb to this brainwashing entertainment many things can become neglected, and they are left as unsocial zombies glued to a glowing screen, wrapped in the lives of others. It has also become a habit for some to schedule duties around their favorite programs, detracting from time in which they could be getting things done, such as work, exercising, or reading, actually using their brains. Some people have even been known to drive recklessly just to make it home in time for a program, neglecting their duties of the road and endangering everyone around them. Television fills time that could be used to exercise your brain, find a hobby or learn something new.

How will anybody learn anything new if the initiative and common sense hasn’t been taken to find that information? Even the search for new information has slowed because of television. People no longer have to use reason and time to find the things that they need, it’s all just laid out for them and yes there may be some beneficial points to this, but through the process of finding information people learn things they didn’t expect and develop skills that will help them in life. Instead people lazily through themselves in front of a glowing box and loose all interest in what they could learn or have learned, and just open themselves up to commercials and things that stuff our brains full of the things we think we need.

These “needs” are crammed into this country, so that citizens change their values from accomplishment, wisdom, and happiness to money and beauty. Our society is full of advertisements and forms of subliminal messages, which make the majority of the population, believe that they “need” objects, money, and sex to fill our desires. Though these shallow requests look good on the surface, what people are forgetting is the way that the accomplished obtain these things. Accomplished people didn’t obtain these luxuries by watching them on T.V., as civilians do, they got them by thinking about the specific things that they wanted and more importantly figured out the way they were going to go about to get them. Society has all these primitive values that in the end bring nobody satisfaction and irrationally outweigh the nation’s intelligence and general thinking process. That’s exactly it, people aren’t really thinking so they continue not to think; people just allow themselves to get wrapped up all of these materialistic possessions that truthfully holds no significance, resulting in the irresponsibility and stupidity of America.

All in all television does detract from the thinking process because it doesn’t require you to think. T.V. is just there, a short lived happiness nothing substantial to offer. So when you reach for the remote and turn on that monitor next ask yourself, “Is this helping me, couldn’t I be doing something much more productive?”