For one thing, TV can be a big time-waster in some sense. Easy enough to find many people watching TV for several hours every day. Some people even turn it on seven o’clock in the morning and don’t leave it until midnight, which is not only harmful to their health but also affect their work and study. Some people are glued to their TV sets and become so immersed in TV that they fail to communicate with people around them. This certainly helps cause generation gaps, divorce and other social problems.
For anther thing, what the author warned us against is that children can be adversely affected by constantly watching TV. I think this is due to the fact that they participate less in physical activities, spend less time reading and studying, and see a world of violence and pornography that can affect their feelings of security.
With our worries gaining day by day, the author even suggested our getting rid of this “plug-in drug”. But is it the whole picture television gives us? I don’t think so:
To me, TV, as the most pervasive and persuasive modern technology marked by rapid change and growth, not only brings the world into home in sight and sound, but also brings plenty of practical benefits to people.
What I want to stress most is the educational role television plays. For example, TV provides education for millions of people. There are many special programs for high school and college students. A lot of programs help people to learn English, keep us informed about the current events and allow us to follow the latest development in science. There are also various programs about nature, science and technology. Many programs are both instructive and stimulating. We may safely say that our education owes a great debt to the invention of TV.
Further, for most of the time, TV is offering the entertainment people need and want. With the help of TV, you can watch famous plays and artistic performances and enjoy beautiful music and songs. Without TV, people will be certainly in a loss.
So, now leaves the problem how people can make good use of television and guard against the side-effect TV may carry:
When the parents keep blaming TV for lowing the moral level of their kids, I think they themselves are responsible too. It is they who use the television as a cheap baby-sitter while they are out drinking or shopping.
In fact, as the users of the TV, I always think that we can be more active. If the program is not good, why not shift it to another or turn the TV off? I also propose to establish a television censorship board with powers to cancel broadcasting rubbish. This board will investigate all complaints received from the public and will judge programs according to a fixed standard…
In this way, we can prevent this wonder of electronics from harming the society, and can make it move into a new era, an era of extraordinary sophistication and versatility, which will promise to reshape our lives and our world positively and healthily.
