my story

Who would have thought that we would one day watch moving scenes from a black box? Come to think of it, the idea of sitting comfortably on a couch and switching channels with just a click of the remote seems intriguing. However, the fact that people are spending more time, approximately two to three hours per day, on watching television merely shows how important this asset is to families nowadays (ATUS 2003). Perspectives have been changed and people now see television as a common necessity more than a luxury. Nevertheless, I strongly believe that television viewing causes harmful effects, such as the underdevelopment of certain skills, the acceptance of violence and the cultivation of an unhealthy lifestyle.

Firstly, children who watch television excessively may not develop thinking skills that will carry them throughout their years. According to Jones (2001), television viewing is a passive activity. Neither do viewers move physically, nor mentally because there is no need to do so. This encourages the mind to remain stagnant, further causing the brain to lose its ability to generate thoughts after some time. Children, especially, do not develop imaginative skills to create fictitious characters, situations and make-believe worlds (Leigh 2001). Without these abilities, they are not able to come up with practical and speedy solutions when a problem arises. In other words, they cannot fully organise their thoughts into action.

Besides that, children may accept violence as a normal part of life through television viewing (Sharif 1999). Children nowadays do not just watch cartoons, and even if they do, cartoons are just not as innocuous anymore. Some portray violent scenes, albeit to a minimal extent. Prime time news showing graphic scenes are also a source of exposure. Regardless, exposure is exposure and we cannot deny that. When scenes like fighting and beating people are too common until the adults themselves do not react, children become desensitised to violence (Sharif 1999). Worse still, they may think of it as an acceptable solution to any problem in the future.

On another note, television viewing creates opportunity cost for homework and exercise. As portrayed by the UK Time Use Survey (2000), people spend most of their time on television and less on sports and reading. When we are so engrossed in watching television, we do not mind going all the way in making sure that our must-see programmes are not missed (Rutherford 2002). Hence, we organise our timetable around the programme schedule. In some sense, we are turning ourselves into slaves of television as other activities have to wait no matter what. The option for a sedentary lifestyle, coupled with excessive snacking, may even lead to obesity and related disease.

In conclusion, I truly believe that television viewing hinders the development of certain skills, causes children to be desensitised to violence and eats into the time set for homework and exercise. However, I would also like to stress that the existence of these negative effects should not be a barrier to watching television. The key to smart viewing is self-discipline. So long as we know our limits, I reckon there is nothing wrong in a little de-stressing. As Rutherford (2002) brilliantly puts it, television is a bad master but a good servant. The onus is on us to use it wisely.