Is television good or bad for us? This has always been a debate that has constantly concerned us throughout the course of history. When television was first created in the 20th century, it was just a small little black box that was meant to be an insignificant portion of entertainment in a fully scheduled day. In this generation, television has gone to new heights, providing a wide range of programs from serious dramas to reality TV. What most people thought started off, as a resource for delight has become one of the biggest sources of entertainment. Television is good for us because it not only brings joy and happiness, but also portrays life in an exciting way that reality does not.
One benefit of watching television is that it not only is a guilty pleasure to many, but is educational as well. These days, many programs created are aimed towards kids, guiding them to make the right decisions through lessons played out in an episode. For example, if a child sees a polar bear on the popular Nickelodeon show “Dora the Explorer,” they are probably more likely to go online and do research on the polar bear, providing a path of learning for future subjects to come. Seeing subjects on TV can onset learning more than just reading a book. Television not only benefits kids educationally, but adults as well. In their busy schedules, adults don’t have the time to learn about things happening in the world as sufficiently as they can. With the help of television, they are able to learn about new and various topics conveniently with the click of a button.
Another reason why television is good for us is because it helps us relax and deal with the expectations of real life. There are so demands to everyday life these days that when we come home, we just want to prop our feet on the couch and watch our favorite shows and programs. This does not necessarily mean that we are couch potatoes, but more so that TV is a reliever for stress and a button away from a world of entertainment. Television also provides an escape from reality, and with the busy and unpredictable schedules that life creates every single day, we definitely need it. When watching different programs, we don’t have to think, it does the thinking for us, and that’s why watching television is so enjoyable. This just comes to show that we as people don’t want to take things so seriously all the time.
Television is also good for us because it helps bring awareness to issues that don’t usually come to mind. Being able to watch programs like the news everyday provides us with different views of the world and shows us how to act in any arena that we’re thrown in. It exposes us to things happening around the world and actually does give us a sense of reality, letting us see the good, the bad, and everything in between. Watching television makes us more aware of the world that we live in. For example, watching a documentary on the recent effects of the earthquake in Haiti may increaser our humanity towards people in general, pointing out topics that we never knew about before. This gives us insight into the struggle of people around the world and how they are trying to deal with it. Television gives us access to subjects that we normally don’t bring attention to.
Though the debate of whether or not television is good or bad leads on, there is no doubt that it has definitely come a long way. What started off as just an invention, a creation made in mind that would end up like all the other pastimes has now become the biggest entertainment resource in the world. Television is a great joy to many and the pros certainly outweigh the cons. I think that television at the end of the day is good for us because it’s educational, pure entertainment for those of us who need to get away from normal life, and brings awareness to a lot of different issues.