Have you ever spent hours watching your favorite shows for longer than you can remember? The article, “Pro/Con: Binge-watching” debates the pros and cons of spending hours of your day watching shows, and what the effects of binge-watching are. Binge-watching is an addiction that can cause serious damage if you spend too long doing it because it can cause numerous health problems and insomnia, and because it can end up making you depressed and lonely and can worsen your stress, and even though binge-watching releases dopamine that relieves some stress, you can get addicted to the same dopamine which could develop into something similar to a drug addiction. Binge-watching is a harmful addiction and can be deleterious to you because there are …show more content…
The article states, “Binge-watching requires sitting for hours and hours. This behavior has been linked to serious medical issues such as heart disease, cancer and blood clots. The frequent snacking that can accompany a binge-watching session can also be linked to weight gain and damaged arteries. [22] [23]” This proves how binge-watching can have a tremendous impact on your physical wellbeing, because sitting for hours upon hours can lead to medical issues that could be irreversible, that affect your health, such as various forms of heart diseases and cancers, and clotting of blood in your veins. As well as these risks, the links that snacking has with binge-watching can be devastating to your diet, and can lead to huge weight gains and the damaging of your arteries, which could prove to be an extremely serious effect. The article also states, “One study found that binge-watching was related to poor sleep quality, fatigue and insomnia. Getting very invested in a series right before bed winds the viewer up, rather than helping them calm down. Some viewers may be unable to sleep as a result. 5. Others may choose binge watching over sleep. One survey found that just over 45 percent of binge-watchers stayed awake all night to
The panoply of programs a television provides allows a viewer to search for new interests and inspires them to do new things. I, for one, can attest to this, as my knowledge of baseball was limited as a child, until one day I decided to watch a broadcast of the San Francisco Giants; now I am a baseball superfan with friends from all over the country who share in this interest, and also a softball player who exercises every day. I did not become a couch potato from my experiences with television, but rather, a happier, healthier
Primarily, the domination power television has on its viewers is incomparable to the one drugs have over their addicts. First, addicts to television are not dominated in the same level addicts to drugs are. Hamill says that television absorbs its viewers in the same way drugs absorb their users because both television and drugs cultivate asocial behaviors in people (63, 64). Departing from this idea, it may seem reasonable to say that addicts to television and drugs both portrait unsocial attitudes, but doesn't this happen with any other kind addiction? Here Hamill is isolating a generalization which intention is to proclaim an assumption to be true. In his example, Hamill explains how some Americans fight their loneliness by leaving their TV sets on as companion (63). Instead of support Hamill's idea this example shows how Americans fulfill their vacancy of company rather than how Americans become lonely due to television. Second, independent studies on television do not qualify to determine the relation betwe...
This article, “Tune Out, Light Up”, by David Kopel poses an unrealistic and over exaggerated argument of explaining why watching television presents greater harm than smoking cigarettes. Unfortunately, this argument is unsuccessful because of the weak execution but it has potential for success if exaggeration is limited and scientific evidence is given. Referencing journals and clinical research can be beneficial for this argument, since health matters are of concern. Kopel paints individuals with the same brush in this article, and fails to acknowledge the unique details of genetics and specific television channels. This article does promote future talks about how simple leisure activities in life could be far more dangerous than expected, especially when compared with a massive threat. Therefore, if the improvements are specifically made and the writing is more formalized in that regard, then this article can be effective in implementation of the overall
Winn, Marie. “Television Addiction” The McGraw-Hill Reader. 8th ed. Ed. Gilbert Muller, New York: McGraw-Hill, 2003. 505-507
In the world today watching television is so addictive that everything else looks unattractive. The author argues that television is not lethal as drugs and alcohol but it can have many effects such as children getting more violent and reality seem second best. Every person lives are filled with emotions including anxiety, depression, and stress so after long hard work day the best medicine is to turn the television on and not to worry about anything. For example, I usually drive from site to site to take care of business. So when I return home from work I will sit on my couch and turn the television on and flick the channel until I fall to sleep. As Marie Winn describes, "the television experience allows the participant to blot out the real world and e...
As long as a balanced lifestyle is maintained, binge watching can be quite healthy. For some people, binge viewing can be a great stress reliever and provide a type of television therapy (Matrix 129). For example, stressed out students regularly rely on binge viewing to immersive themselves in another world for the pleasure of leaving their own stressful lives (Matrix 129). Binge watching provides an escape from the pressures and anxieties of everyday life, giving consumers an outlet to getaway and immerse themselves in an activity, which has dramatically less damaging consequences than other outlets that stressed out individuals use to escape, such as drugs and
Excessive screen time can affect people physically, socially, and emotionally. Spending excessive time in front of a screen impacts a child’s physical health. For example, a child who spends more than four hours per day in front of a screen, is less physically fit (Narvaez). The child also eats more junk food but less fruits and vegetables (Narvaez). The Archives of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicinereports, “for each hour of tv watched, a child will consume an additional
Before television existed people had to depend on Radio stations to receive their little bit of entertainment and news. But in 1878, the invention of TV began. The first TV made didn’t look anything like the way TV’s look today. It was a mechanical camera with a large spinning disc attached to it (Kids Work). But as over the years, of course, inventions of different TV’s progressed and by the 20th century about 90 percent of our population had a TV in their household (MGHR). Television today is mainly used for people take a break from their life by relaxing and enjoying some entertainment.
Almost every person has binge-watched a show. It is something that people do just to relax, or just to watch their favorite show. The term binge-watching means watching 3-5 episodes of one series in one sitting. 70% of people have confessed to binge-watching, but is it actually something that can harm you? Binge-watching is harmless because it can improve your mental health, and it can improve your romantic or social relationships with people.
In “Television Addiction” by Marie Winn, the author suggests that TV addiction and Drug and Alcohol addiction are similar in many ways. First she explains what she considers to be a serious drug addiction, such as not feeling normal without them, the need to repeat it, ignoring other pleasurable experiences, never being satisfied, damaging one’s life and ruining relationships. Then she asks us to consider the television addiction in the same light and explains why she feels that it should be. In my experience I can see how television viewing would be considered an addiction and why Winn would too. When someone allows an activity to negatively affect their productivity, relationships and
“Up! up! my Friend, and quit your books…” Wordsworth starts off by saying this in one of his highly known poems “The Tables Turned.” In this poem, Wordsworth creates a mood of happiness, serenity, and calmness. He likes to think of nature as some super power and it can do anything to anyone. Wordsworth is opposed to staying inside and doing nothing. He is all about going outside and letting yourself be free and enjoying mother nature. What I’m basically going to be talking about is “The Tables Turned” and how it relates to our life that we live in now.
In the argumentative essay “T.V. Addiction” by Marie Winn, Winn relates watching television to having an addiction with drugs and alcohol. The television experience allows us to escape from the real world and enter into a pleasurable and peaceful mental state. When it comes to television, Marie asks the following question: Is there a kind of television viewing that falls into the more serious category of destruction addiction? I believe there is. Why do so many people, instead of doing what they’re supposed to be doing, put everything on hold and just focus on television? I think this is because they want an escape from their problems.
When television first came on the market about fifty years ago, families had one television at the most in the household, and most families only used the television for the news or for an occasional show or two. Today, it is a rarity if you find only one television in a household. Most families have numerous televisions in their house and use it more and more for entertainment purposes. People of all ages are addicted to television. On average, people watch about thirty hours of television a week. But the people who go beyond this mark are known to society as “couch potatoes';.
To many children, TV can be appealing because they find the colorful cartoons interesting and instantly catches their attention. But, as entertaining and fun Television can be, spending too much time looking at your big fifty inch flat screen TV can eventually impact your life. It seems like if you just spend all your time sitting on the couch, you may find yourself preparing fast meals, such as a ham sandwich thrown with some potato chips on a plate or just driving to buying something from McDonald’s. But this can eventually affect your health. If we give Television too much attention it can also affect relationships with parents, siblings or a partner. It can slowly become an easy addiction to come home to, sit on the couch and spend the rest of the day watching all the shows we like. Lastly, too much Television can affect our mood which can lead to certain thinking and
One of the physiological effects of watching television in excessive amounts is eye-strain. It is true that there are specifications for watching television; television should be 5 m. away from the eye, the room should be adequately lit, television should be placed at the same height with our eyes, etc. However, these do not prevent our eyes from getting tired if we keep watching television for a long time. Another effect is obesity, which is widely observed in people who like watching television and eating snacks everyday (there is even a term “television snacks” to refer to fast food that is suitable for eating in front of the television). television is such a powerful machine that people cannot get away from it – it is addictive. Apart from the physiological effects, television also causes psychological effects. One is a result of being exposed to