Television addiction is ignored because watching television every night is completely ordinary in families today. Since parents are tired from working and taking care of the household business, they fail to play any active games with their children, or sit down to listen to their spouses’ concerns. Instead, parents decide for themselves and their children to be inactive by sitting in front of television. The writer states that staring at the screens of the television sets is an uncontrolled routine, “when there is “nothing much on I really like,” they watch whatever else is on because
In “Discrimination at Large” Jennifer A. Coleman explains that obesity is the last preserve for unexplained bigotry. She tells us how overweight people are publicly criticized without remorse on TV, in the news and in cartoons. Coleman goes on to say people who would never think about telling an anti-gay or racial joke have no problem screaming “move your fat ass” when we cross in front of them. Furthermore, she tells us that overweight children are taught that they deserve to be mocked. I found this article to be very eye opening for me and how I deal with the subject of obesity around my children.
Natale 1 Brooke Natale Professor Thoreson English 101 10 October 2006 Unplugged In Marie Winn’s essay, “Television: The Plug-In Drug,” she states that television once was viewed as something that was positive and brought families together; it now has more negative effects. Winn puts it best when she talks about “early illustration…a family cozily sitting together before the television set, Sis on Mom’s lap, Buddy perched on the arm of Dad’s chair, Dad with his arm around Mom’s shoulder…twenty years or so later Mom would be watching a drama in the kitchen, the kids would be looking at cartoons in their room, while Dad would be taking in the ball game in the living room” (par. 5). There is no such thing as family television anymore.
“ I thought back to times we’d sat still for afternoons , never moving a muscle, just shifting our weight along the ground, talking to whoever sat with us, watching things. He’d always had a joke, then, too, and now you couldn’t get him to laugh, or when he did it was more the sound of a man choking , a sound that stopped up the throats of other people around him” (Erdrich 112-113.) Lyman and Henry’s brotherly relationship had taken a turn for the worse. While Henry was gone Lyman purchased a television set for the family, which he he regretted not having when Henry started to watch it. “ He sat in front of it, watching it, and that was the only time he was completely still.
Coontz believes it is not a good decade for people to remember there was change in values that caused racism, sexism, and discrimination against women. Viewers today would not turn to sitcoms to compare their lives to the sitcoms. For example, the viewers do not want to be a teenage single father living at home with parents with no education as in the show “Raising Hope.” People watch sitcoms now for entertainment. In the 1950s sitcoms the mother stayed at home to look after the children and the father was the one off to work to financially support the family. As shown in sitcoms, “gender roles became much more predictable, orderly and settled in the 1950s” (Coontz 31).
Do not get me wrong; surely I do believe every animal should have protection laws, but I am strongly astounded by the fact that even our cats and dogs are not given the justice they need. We all have been through this moment- you’re sitting on your couch watching your favorite TV show when all of a sudden that commercial comes on. Some of us do not feel comfortable watching it and so we change the channel or turn off the TV. Then there is the rest of us who do contain ourselves and watch. I for one, never change the channel and I make sure to watch.
Too much mindless entertainment is very relevant it today’s world. A new study suggests teenagers who watch several hours of television a day do worse at school and are less likely to graduate than their peers. Therefore, too much television may result in academic failure. Fire chief Beatty tells Montag to see if his stolen books contain anything worthwhile and then burn them. Overwhelmed by the task of reading, Montag looks to his wife for help and support, but she prefers television to her husband’s company and cannot understand why he would want to risk reading books.
Bones I'm not much of a sports watcher, let alone a player. I don't watch television a lot since only particular television programs interest me. Crime-solving, semi-gory, drama filled series catch my attention. Considering I have cable, there's not many channels that pertain to my interest. Two years ago I turned the channel to TNT and a show was playing, called Bones.
Even though watching television might be considered a waste of time because we are sitting around for hours heedless. It is important to know that we are not becoming less intelligent, passive and insensitive as a result of doing this activity. Shirky states, “I was forced into the channel of media the way it was because it was the only option” (240). Regardless of the author’s statement that when he was growing up, the only recreational thing available to do was to watch TV, naturally his intelligence or social consciousness and proactivity was not affected during this period of time. Shirky expresses, “It doesn’t mean that we’ll never sit around mindlessly watching Scrubs on the couch” (240).
My experience was not as bad as others. The day I decided to stay home and pretend I was sick. While I was sitting in front of the television the TV went blank and the news immediately started broadcasting what had just took place in New York. The Women spoke in a broken but yet calm voice. As if she knew someone that was working at the Twin Towers at the time.