Television is Mindless Entertainment :: essays research papers

Televisions are probably one of the world’s greatest inventions. Nine out o f ten people won’t know how to explain how it actually works, but everyone who can afford one owns one. There is a lot of debate about whether TVs are good or bad. â€Å"A television is a device you can sit in front of and watch other people do things that you could be doing if you weren’t sitting there watching them do it.† - Unknown Yes, TVs provide mass education to people, for example, in Australia, people get their schooling via TVs if they live in remote areas. Everyday the teacher does lessons across the TV, and if the ‘pupils’ have any questions they phone in and ask on air. In South Africa we have ‘School TV’, but it isn’t a proper schooling, like Aussie’s. Sabc also offer the Math, English and Science lessons for matrics, but they are so boring that most people don’t even bother watching it. There are good shows like Dr. Phil and Oprah, where they actually are helping other people and teaching them right from wrong. Shows like these are interesting to watch and they are teaching us morals unlike everything else. Channels such as National Geographic and Discovery Channel also provide education, whether you learn about Hitler or whales, you learn something at least. But these channels are only offered on DSTV which is very expensive and the people that can afford it are the well-educated ones who don’t need it, the people that really need it can’t access it anyway. Another good thing about TV is the ‘News’, with the news on everyday, in lots of languages, everyone can keep up to date with everything that is happening around the globe without having to go to the trouble of actually reading it in a newspaper. As everything has its pros, it must have its cons. One of the main topics that people speak about is the fact that the programs are promoting immorality and it is eroding true Christian values. In every ‘soapie’ and lots of other shows, there are the people that are having affairs, pre-marital sex, taking alcohol, drugs, using bad language†¦the list goes on, but people think it’s funny and cool and do it all themselves. People believe what they see, and think it’s alright if they are also doing it because it makes them ‘cool’. In one incident on Dr Phil, there was a woman who was married to a great guy and they had three children, but she wanted to get divorced so that she could move in with a gay friend of hers, he didn’t love her and obviously never would, but she kept insisting, so finally he went to Dr Phil for help.