Nowadays television plays a significant role not only in social and political life, acting as a tool for spreading information and forming people’s mentality, but also in the everyday life of individuals as a source of entertainment. It affects our minds and plays a role in shaping social changes. It is argued that this may be harmful as television shows more and more sex and violence, sacrifices the quality of the programs for the sake of commercial benefit and takes away the biggest part of our free time. On the other hand it is impossible to imagine the life of modern society without television, especially keeping in mind the crucial importance of spreading information around the globe.

What's your outlook?

There simply needs to be a balance (aka certain number of hours allowed to watch) and frankly: the watcher needs to know that what you see on tv is not real. If they use it as an excuse to be violent, they have tons of mental problems.

Excessive violence/gore/sex to the point it's nearing R-NC 17 range: Fine you probably want to cut those down since that's not acceptable for most of the general audience.

I support less commercials since I hate commercials. But I doubt TV networks would do that since a large part of their revenue is from commercials.

I agree with KTC. Commercials are annoying, especially the infomercials.

I also agree that there should be a balance. A person shouldn't just watch TV all day. Nor should a parent let a child watch TV all day. Parents should also be aware of what their kids are watching. A few hours of the day is enough TV for a day.

I agree with KTC and Mopiece. Com/info mercials make me turn off the television.

The usual tv watching must be at least 1-2 hours of watching. They must make sure that the show they are watching is fitting for their age. If it has the reminder of "Parental Guidance", they should be with their child while watching those programs, especially if it is too bloody for them to watch...

two words: internet television.

@nick: heck yeah. Only problem though is if someone doesn't upload the show. Mainstream shows are easy to find. Not so with non mainstream >_<

@nick: I checked it out. that's only good for american shows >_<;; Things like J/K/C dramas (japanese, korean, chinese) often don't get enough coverage unless they're really popular. ;_;

It's not impossible to live without the television

but not without newspapers, magazines, and of course the internet

I rarely even watch television anymore. When I do want to watch something, like Chinese TVB, I either watch it online, or I buy the bootleg discs for super cheap.

we can really live without tv,
the mass media is compressed already in the internet

Well I somehow agree with elonah. There is a radio where I can listen in. Radios are much better for me to use because tvs are also bad to the eyes if you watch too near the tv.

I don't watch TV as much as I used to. There are a few shows that I'll catch every now and again but alot of the time it's just repeats.

Also, I'd have disagree with elonah that it's impossible to live without the internet. I didn't have internet at my home until I was a teenager. Sometimes it's nice to get away from it. And I'm sure I'd be more productive with some things without it.

@elonah: ditto mizzou. it's definitely possible to live without internet. I mean, internet only came into being in what, the last 5-10 years?

So what did those poor humans back in Mesopotamia do without internet? XD

Quote:

The internet's been around ALOT longer than that. I was in my early teens when I got it at home and that was more than 10 years ago. And I know I used it in grade school when we had time in the computer lab.

But I'm too lazy to go find out when it was invented.

I am happy to say that I have a life outside television, so this really isn't such a big deal for me....plus, my family has a single tv with no cable or anything so there isn't much point for me to watch anyway...

I would rather listen to the radio than the internet. As for the internet, useful but sometimes you gather wrong info. Thats why we have libraries.

@mizzou: oh fine. ~20-40 years? Definitely under a hundred though so internet is very recent compared to how long humans been on this tiny lil planet lol

@heimdall: even books can be erroneous too Look at a bio book from 20 years ago (in the libraries) and than look at a current one. lol

@Heimdall
Any source you use could have wrong information. That's why you check to make sure it's a credible source or at least see if there is something that could make the author bias.

I remember the first computer I had the opportunity to come into contact with. 1982, Virginia Department of Social Services. We had one in our office. I was fascinated with it. Made a point to start learning everything I could about them and the programs that ran on them.

Arizona State University was the first opportunity that I had to work on one. At the time ASU - College of Engineering and Applied Sciences - had their own word processing software, called MUSE. When I transferred to the computer department that services the whole university I got the opportunity to learn more.

It wasn't long after that, that Mac's came onto campus and that opened up a whole new adventure for me. At this point I could dial-up to the university and "get on the system" and mess around. Friends of mine and I found a server that hosted a sorta role playing game called Fiery Mudd.

You chose your character and along with it came attributes. You could link with others to fight or not. There were no pictures... only words scrolling down the screen. Your choices for fighting were fight (live or die) or flee. Others could join in and help you fight or heal you. There were anywhere from 1 or 2 to 10 players on at any one time and it became a tight knit community.

As for tv... sheesh... when I was most of you guys ages we got to watch Wonderful World of Disney on Sunday night, HeeHaw on Saturday night, cartoons until noon on Saturday and if you wanted to watch tv any other time you were watching sports. We chose to play outside with our friends.

Times, they be'a changin'!