Television Addiction

Charity Kariuki Kariuki 1

Miss. Sanchez

Page one

4/17/08

TELEVISION ADDICTION EFFECTS ON THE YOUNG GENERATION.

Television was a wonderful and spectacular invention. The concept of breaking images into tiny points of light for transmission over radio waves was a scientific break through (Portz Stephen) but now it seems the television is destroying our community. Television has become a drug, just like heroin or cocaine it soothes us and puts a barrier between life and reality. Its greatest effects are felt by the children who are still growing up. They have being born and raised in the presence of this great invention but silent poison.

When I was young my mother used to send me outside when she realized I spent the whole day watching television and at night when it was something inappropriate for my age she would send me to bed. Nowadays my brother comes from school grabs the remote control and does not move until forced to. This is not a problem only my brother suffers from but other children in the neighborhood have the same problem. Parents are encouraging their children to watch more television rather than ask them to indulge themselves in physical activities. According to the A.C. Nielson Co. the average American will have spent their nine years of their sixty five year life watching television. The average youth spends nine hundred hours in school and fifteen hundred hours watching television (Herr Norman). We are spending more time watching television than time in school which results in dire consequences in our academic achievements.

There is a proverb that says as you sow so shall you, this basically means if you plant good seeds you will have a good harvest. When a child is developing they need a positive environment to prosper in, given a negative environment they will grow up to follow what they have learnt. Children acquire this from the different television shows that present violence, hate and negative aspects of our community.

Excessive television viewing has negative effects on children. One of the negative effects of television is violence. According to Garvin Mary the average American child will have watched 200,000 violent acts before reaching eighteen years of age. “Violent acts are perpetrated by good guys who children are taught to emulate,” (Garvin Mary) This later results in children believing violence is fine and even sometimes the bad guys are not punished for their wrong deed portraying how you can commit a crime and not get punished for it. The children later grow up putting into practice the moral values they have acquired.

One of the things we learnt in health class was do not smoke or do not drink because it is bad for your health. This days television presents smoking or abuse of alcohol as cool, fun and exciting. According to Garvin Mary

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