Almost every day one can hear some mention of "The TV generation of the '90s." Many harshly label television as a "drug," claiming that millions of children every day waste their time in front of this electronic altar. Others remark that television is stifling the creativity and independent thoughts of millions. (I suppose that somehow every viewer must automatically blindly conform to the ideas presented on the tube.) Well, I strongly disagree with the viewpoint that television is a waste of time.

Thoughts and ideas are the qualities that make society dynamic. Thoughts and ideas are the elements out of which creativity and invention are made out of. However, no matter how brilliant or useful the thought, it is useless to society if it cannot be expressed to others, improved and utilized.

Today, there are many different ways to transfer thoughts and ideas. Of these, television, with its combination of audio-visual stimuli, is one of the quickest to present an idea clearly and completely. To say that television is not important is to say that learning about other cultures thousands of miles away by seeing and hearing is a waste of time. In this age of information, television is one of the most efficient means of mass communication available to man.

Where else could billions of people have beheld the horrors of the Tiananmen Square incident or witnessed firsthand man's first steps on the moon? In what other way could people of the entire socio-economic spectrum have simultaneously experienced the fall of the Berlin Wall or Vietnam?

Television unites mankind because people separated by distance, skin color, language and wealth can all relate to some of the things they see on TV. By destroying these barriers that separate man, television educates and brings forth a kind of awareness to its viewers. Whether it is suburban school children being able to relate to gang violence or heterosexuals being sensitive to the problems of homosexuals, this special awareness is an attribute unique to television. No other appliance of the information age is as quick and widely used around the world as television. Failing to acknowledge the positive value of this resource to mankind is an enormous mistake. ?