Argumentative Essay – The effect of television viewing
In accordance with the increasingly pursuing of better material standard of living by human beings, television has now become a fascinating entertainment tool to both young and old. According to Sharif (1999), it is a truth that more than ninety percent of households in an urbanized country own at least one television set. American Time Use Survey (2003) clarifies that watching television has become the major leisure activity for United States’ citizens. Issues on television as well as its effects are getting more contradictory among the public. However, I strongly believe that television viewing can lead to various unfavourable drawbacks that outweigh its benefits.
First and foremost, television viewing can lead to various behavioural problems among children. Children are at a stage when their attitudes, beliefs and ideas about the world are taking shape, therefore, they are easily influenced by the programs they watch (Sharif 1999). In most of the television programs displayed by television, people are portrayed to have negative characteristics such as violent and sexy (Sharif 1999). When they are speculated by children without accompanied by their parents, this will further affect their behaviour as well as their action towards the others. This is best illustrated with the example that children have injured themselves by putting on Superman costumes and jumping out of trees. Overall, television viewing can lead to disastrous consequences on children and in order to avoid all these from happening, parents’ concern should be put into advising them.
Besides that, television viewing adversely influences the development of thinking processes of a child. According to Leigh (2001), by watching television, children do not develop their imaginative skills to create fictitious characters and other skills which are important in handling developing problems. Subsequently, by displaying violent programs, television has become an equipment to implement an incorrect concept of thinking that violence can be used to solve everything in the mind of a child. With television programs that encourage children to think that all problems can be solved within thirty minutes such as “Friends”, they become aggravated and distracted easily when encounter complicated situations in real life (Sharif 1999). In short, television viewing can negatively affects the thoughts of a child and excessive television viewing should be cut down.
In addition, television viewing can trigger various health problems such as obesity and related disease as television viewing is a passive activity. According to Rutherford (2002), human beings’ lifestyle has changed thoroughly and they prefer to indulge in with snacks while watching television. However, is it proven that this sedentary activity can lead to various harmful effects regarding health issue. Prolonged periods in front of television may not be beneficial because by doing so, children are not being physically active. This evidence has strengthened the fact that television viewing can lead to obesity and other related disease.
In a nutshell, I strongly believe that television viewing can lead to various detrimental drawbacks in influencing children’s development and thinking as well as lead to various health problems. To avoid all these consequences, time management can certainly be useful to obtain an optimum point in which the negative effects can be minimised as well as having ourselves being refreshed after a hard day or work at school (Rutherford 2002).
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