How Is Television A Waste Of Time

Television: The Addicting Time Waster of the Modern Age Have you ever wondered if you watch television that it might be harmful to you? Do you think that you might be addicted to your television to the television? Do you feel drained of energy after you get done watching a show or two? In our modern age, every person at least owns a television set some kind and has watched television shows or movies to pass the time. Robert Kubey and Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi describe television in their article, “Television Addiction is No Mere Metaphor”, as a form of a drug that can leave the body quickly.

I will discuss how television is just as addictive as a drug, and how watching the television is a waste of time. In my first topic, I will discuss television

With television, people who run broadcasting organizations know how to grab a curious viewer 's attention. Just like worm on a hook to a fish, television has different ways to lure us in. Some shows use jump cuts, camera tricks like pans and zooms and sudden noises. As humans, we tend to pay attention to orienting responses because they can take us by surprise. To study the addictive nature of the television, Kubey and Csikszentmihalyi ran an experiment where participants are watching television. Both authors observed that while the participants were watching television, they feel relaxed and were passive. When the television was turned off, though, they were still passive but were not relaxed anymore. The participants felt as if the television it drained them of the energy they have. Just like a narcotic, television can give you somewhat of a high, but is short and can leave your body, with a bit of withdrawal for the person who is using the drug. Another author by the name of Cary W. Horvath ran a similar experiment in his article, “Measuring Television Addiction”, but in Horvath 's case, he ran two separate experiments which were used to measure the addictive nature of television. One of the experiments involved participants were around adult age, ranging from 18 to 82, each was personally contacted at four locations: a flea market, a restaurant, and 2 fire stations. The scale of measuring

Clay Shirky states in his article, “Gin, Television, and Social Surplus,” that it would be better if we just did an activity, like playing video games, rather than just sitting on the couch for hours on end doing nothing. In the article, Shirky talks about how before World War II, people in the United Kingdom just drank gin. There would be a pushcart that would go around and sell this alcoholic beverage. This is what they did as a passtime before the advent of television. After World War II, all people had free time. They used all their free time watching television, instead of doing something productive. Shirky gives an example of someone playing a video game, or someone in their basement playing a role-playing game, to him it counts as something to do. Free time was designed to get something like errands done, or to do an activity, like playing games, hanging out with friends, and even just talking to another person. The average American watches 2 billion hours of television per year. Those are 2 billion hours that you will not make up in your life time. For the media, they try to target a different audience with different show, and that’s how people get hooked with television. If we learned what we know from the television, we wouldn’t be able to survive within society, because we wouldn’t know the thing we need to know to