Television Does More Harm Than Good

When the TV was invented, it impressed the whole world, so everyone since then seeks to buy a one. In the past TV was only has less than ten channels and it were locked in the latest hours of night. But now there is thousands or millions of satellite channels are broadcasted on TV. As a result the number of TV owners has risen until 98% of American households have a TV set and the same is true of most developed countries.
In fact, television channels should be boycotted by the public because most of these channels broadcast valueless programs and sometimes telecast programs that have a negative effect on the spectator and society, so television does more harm than good. Supporter of television argue that TV plays an important role in the educational field by presenting science, geography, history and news programs. It also presents useful programs for children like “Sesame Street”.
However TV viewing is essentially a passive activity that discourage critical thinking as it shows one side of view and does not show the other opposing views, so this makes people use to fanatic for their opinions and do not listen to other points of view. As a result of continuous actions the watcher does not have much time to think of what he watch, so most viewers especially children watch television indiscriminately. Unfortunately this matter does not stop on that, there is a research suggests that TV can slow down young children’s speech development.

There is a link between literacy problems and frequent TV viewing; similarly there is a link between TV and Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD). Those in favor of TV claim that, it is an innocent form of entertainment, especially for housebound elderly people and the physically handicapped. On the other hand television interferes with conversation, for example visitors often end up staring at “the box in the corner” instead of programs that spread fear and depression by focusing on violence, war, crime and various disasters.
There is some evidence that seeing on-screen violence makes us less sensitive to the real thing. Proponents of TV sometimes suggest that TV makes the world a small village as it closes the gap between different nations and cultures, for example satellite TV news reaches people simultaneously all around the world, as result cultures approached from each other, so the understanding and respect rose between them.
However the satellite channels are controlled by powerful western corporations and the culture of the programs is predominantly North America, European or Australian, so they service the interests of these corporations, as a result of that there is not an equal sharing of information, opinions or cultural expressions. Television is often used as a propaganda tool way to enter everyone’s home and brain, so the powerful western corporations used it in a very subtle way to encourage materialism by developing a desire in developing countries for Coca-Cola, Big Macs, fast cars and western fashion.
In conclusion, television has become a tool in the hand of the western world by which they can control the rest world, so everyone should stop for seconds before switching on a TV and think of what he is coming to do, he must deduce that TV viewing accelerate the process of “Coca-colonization”, destroys the art of conversation, healthy, optimistic view of life and turns people into unthinking, illiterate “couch potatoes”. Just a drug addict must be fought in order to avoid an early death, so the world must switch off its TVs if it wishes to produce active and intelligent citizens.