From what you have seen of North American television, is it beneficial or harmful to its viewers.
...essful modern life, humans need to relax and reduce stress. Comedy brings a good laugh to the whole family and it seems to be loosening the stress weighing everyone down. That is why comedy is one of most viewed genre. Comedy shows such as “Whose lines is it anyway”, “Friends”, or “Just for laugh” are getting more and more popular by the day. Television also serves a teaching purpose. Many public channels air television programs full of educational values. “Nova” is one great example of educational programs because it shows many scientific discoveries, explorations and mysteries. Students as well as young children can learn many valuable lessons from TV that would not normally be included in their school’s curriculum. Television is not only entertainment that helps reduces stress with its variety of programs but it is also a useful tool for teaching young children valuable lessons. On the other hand, TV really is harmful for young children because many programs contain elements of violence, sexuality, or coarse language. The movies such as “Dead Mans Gun” or “XXX” are two examples of these kinds. Although viewer discretion is expected, many young children are still very curious about things that they do not know. Curiosity is always a good thing for young children. However, in this case, it can harm them because by watching TV, they might imitate their favorite characters in the movie. How harmful that would be, perhaps everyone can predict. They may become aggressive, violent, and spoiled. Yet movies and cartoons with tenuous, misleading, and undistinguishable content and make it is hard for viewers to distinguish who are heroes and who are villains. What would young children learn on those shows? For example, “Dragon ball” merely shows the meaningless battles between main characters, or “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” or “Roadrunner” do too by shoving, punching, beating or choking the person. These movies have almost no educational value but are full of harm for viewers. Moreover, rubbishy commercials, cheap and bad comedies, especially scenes of sexuality and violence seriously affect young viewers. What will happen if they imitate and practice what they see? North American television actually is beneficial for its viewers if it does not have shows such as those with sexuality, violence, coarse language. In addition, TV viewing occupies too much time of addicted viewers, making people neglect other healthy activities and they do not complete their daily tasks. In fact, according to research by Winick, children and youngsters have spent more time in front of TV than the time they have been in school. Instead of the time they should have been using for eating, studying, and reading, they have been watching TV. Then, food is left uneaten, homework undone and sleep is lost. The results of study and performance in school are decreased, and health is seriously affected. People become fat, passive, and lazy because they do not play sport, exercise, or do anything at home besides watching TV. By watching TV, people are also isolated from getting in touch with the outside world and the community, their relationships with people around would loosen. What kind of people will they become? TV is harmful to its viewers’ lives by restricting their useful activities and decreasing the time that they spend with family, friends and community. In any event, TV encourages passive enjoyment, cuts off viewers from the real world, and makes people content with second-hand experiences. All day, only watching others working or enjoying themselves, we probably suppose that we c...