television

Television is the 20th century invention that has so fundamentally transformed our lives that we have failed to take note of the change. Television has made us reschedule our activities and plan our life in a different pattern. Our lives have been redefined as the TV now shapes almost every facet of life—our choices, desires, aspirations and dreams. So, with the growing use of TV, it becomes quite important that we make an analysis of how it has influenced our lives.

TV, no doubt, is a source of quick information that can be easily availed of at home. The corning up of a multitude of news channels has rendered it possible to know national arid world events immediately. It also serves as a great device for building up opinions regarding important issues. The role of entertainment is, in fact, the obvious purpose of TV. People can watch movies, soaps and various channels offering a number of programmes round the dock. Numerous sports channels have also cropped up.
TV also serves as a great medium for the producers as they cat reach out to people to advertise their products. Advertisements of various products help people make a well-informed choice over a range of other products.
TV, it is said also helps create awareness regarding social and political evils and makes people rise up against them but also this often turns out to be hypocritical talk as surveys show that that the most use of TV is for the purpose of entertainment and, of course, that means exposure to advertisements. Undoubtedly, various sections of people like farmers, fishermen, etc., have benefited from specific programmes dealing with information about agricultural practices; weather prediction, etc.

The way TV is used however, created concerns all over the world. Social scientists have found a rear relation between growing number of crimes in the real world and violence depicted on TV. The exposure of a young mind to the violence showed on TV is critical; as it catches hold of the sensitive mind and makes violence appear as a general and shortcut tool to be used in life to attain one’s goals. With TV shows showing high amount of violence, number of teenage crimes is going up. Children turning up at schools with guns and shooting their classmates and teachers are no longer new to us.
It has been found that news channels very often sensationalize sensitive issues so that people are agitated over the matter and it becomes difficult to carry out any political or judicial activity in a democracy. Often rumors are also spread through the media. And one also cannot miss the fact that channels often are biased towards a specific group, political or any other, and hence, provide a distorted view of things. And no less dangerous are the advertisements that so often mislead the customers. The TV advertisements seldom portray an honest image of the product.

Apart from all this, constant exposure to television programmes which render something very realistic and sensible in a distasteful manner has been found to kill creativity and imaginative power in a child. Both the children and adults grow averse to the habit of reading and writing with increasing television viewing.

With the coming up of new LCD TVs and other technologically developed TVs, parents, no doubt, may be a bit less worried about the effect of TV watching on their children’s eyes. But it has not been a solution to the other problems. Rather it now presents programmes with a ‘real-life’ touch that make people live in an ivory tower; away from the realities of life.

So, it is high time we took steps to bring down the ill-effects of TV. The first and foremost step to take should be that children are not exposed to heavy doses of crime. This can be done by strong parental control and gadgets attached to the TV that block our violent contents. One must deal with news and information with much caution and wisdom. Television has become a way of life and we cannot just wish it away. Like any other scientific development, it has got its own launch which, we must try to eradicate so that the-TV serves as one of the citadels of a beautiful human civilization.