Television has a big impact on the way we spend our free time.

It probably affects younger people more than adults, as they watch more
TV. Critics of television claim that TV takes away too much of our free time so that
we lack time for other activities like family conversations,
reading, getting exercise etc..

It also shows us a world that is not real. Television often encourages us to think
that the world is more violent than it really is. Through TV
we perceive the glamorous life of people and believe that they are better off than we
are.

Television contributes to our education and knowledge. Documentaries and

information programs give us insight on nature, our environment and political events.

Television has a huge impact on politics. In election years, discussions, speeches

and campaign news of candidates are broadcast almost every day. Political parties
buy TV time to present their views and bring ideas to the audience.

Sports attract the biggest audiences on television. TV stations

pay enormous amounts of money to broadcast big sport events, like the Super
Bowl, Olympic Games, or professional basketball, football and baseball. Because of
television some sports have gained popularityand more and more people engage in
them.

How Does Television Affect Our Lives?

How does television affect our lives? It can be very helpful to people who
carefully choose the shows that they watch. Television can make us know more
about the outside world; there are good programs that help us understand many
subjects: science, medicine, the arts, and so on. Moreover, television helps the old
and the sick who can’t leave the house or the hospital. It also gives learners of a
foreign language lots of chances to practice the language and improve their
vocabulary and listening.

On the other hand, there are several serious disadvantages to television. Of

course, it gives us a pleasant way to relax and spend our free time, but in some
countries, people watch the “boob tube” for over six hours a day. Many children
watch TV for more hours each day than they do anything else, including studying and
sleeping. It’s clear that the tube has a powerful influence on their lives and that its
influence is often very bad.

Recent studies show that after only thirty seconds of TV, a person’s brain
“relaxes” the same way that it does just before the person falls asleep. This is how
television affects the brain and makes people unable to concentrate. Children who
watch a lot of TV can often concentrate on a subject for only fifteen to twenty
minutes; they can pay attention only for the amount of time between commercials!

Another disadvantage is that TV often makes people unhappy with their own
lives. Real life does not seem as exciting to these people as the lives of actors on
the screen. To many people, TV becomes more real than their own lives, which seem
boring to them. Also, many people get upset when they can’t solve problems in real
life as quickly as TV actors seem to. On the screen, actors solve serious problems in
a half-hour program.

By the age of fourteen, a child will have watched eleven thousand killings on the
tube. He or she begins to believe that there is nothing strange about fights, killings,
and other kinds of violence. Many studies show that people become more violent
after watching certain programs. They may even do the things that they saw in a
violent show. An example is the effect of the movie The Deer Hunter. After it
appeared on TV in the United States, twenty-nine people tried to kill themselves in a
way similar to an event in the film.