Depending on the country and the culture of the public, News channels will have different contexts. But for example in the United States of America, the news channels do not alternate much from the theme of violence. What people see everyday on television is mostly another shooting, murder, rape or some act of terrorism. This has a big impact on people whether they are adult or children. There are so many acts of crimes and so many easy ways to get guns that the violence rate there is very high. The crimes are so repetitive on television that it’s almost dull. When teenagers, children or adults shoot each other, they probably do not care seeing that it is not a big thing in America; it was just a thing that they saw on television
Television makes people think less and read less. Read less because you do not have to think as when you are reading and think less. All the visual ideas are already presented and you do not have to imagine them as when you are reading them in a book. This takes away the people’s imaginations
On the other hand, television also has some benefiting sides, the documentaries, the educational films and many more. In this case it helps children in many ways; for school projects, to see things that we will never get the chance to see, to get more knowledge in certain subjects. Since all of these are presented in visual ideas, they are easy to remember and it helps the children to memorize things easier.
Television can also be a good thing when you are watching it as a family. It brings discussions about certain topics and can reunite a family. Examples of this is when a family is watching a documentary on a particular subject, it can bring a subject up for the family members to talk about. These can permit them to have interesting conversations between adults and children so therefore it can increase the amount of communication in the family.
You also find a lot of people discussing a specific topic (for example; drugs) in a talk show (for example. Jerry Springer) and by that you are open to a lot of new point of views and it can broaden your thinking. This is not only done through talk shows, but it is also done by documentaries that show people about other countries or cultures. It can have a great influence on the spectators who think differently.
Television seems to have both beneficial and inconvenient influences. Violence is after all the biggest issue that has been discussed. But if children did not know about it, they would not be able to cope with the real world. Although television is part of growing up, adults, teenagers and children have to watch out what they are watching and monitoring how often they watch television. The older should be looking at what the younger are watching and censor unsuitable movies or channels depending on their age.
To conclude, television has its own advantages and disadvantages and should be used wisely to collect information or from time to time, get away from the real world as long as it does not have too much effect on you.