How Much is Too Much

726 Words3 Pages
How Much is Too Much? How necessary is the television? According to Rose Bachtel in the article Television: Destroying Childhood, television is seriously distracting American’s today. The author states in the article that the distraction begins in the children. The distraction by television is purely a negative one. Bachtel gives many examples stating that children are becoming weak, lazy, impatient, and uncreative. Bachtel also list other negative impacts of television such as the influence of sex and violence on television. The article also includes examples of how easily it is to become distracted by a television in the home. Within the article, Bachtel makes a proposal to end this destructive epidemic by removing television from American homes completely (477-78). This article has a strong point, but was poorly written. There are points throughout the article that are contradicting and lose focus from the intended proposal. The examples given were listed and very unsuccessfully supported. The proposal that was given lacked hard evidence and the background information necessary to provide an effective proposal. The article is about how the television is destroying the childhoods of many Americans, yet Bachtel uses examples of how her adult life is affected. She describes the differences in her life before and after she owned a television set. Bachtel gives examples of how the television distracts her from getting housework and schoolwork done. Within the article it is also discussed how adults use the television to distract children, in order to do their daily chores (478). It is discussed that this is not how adults should raise their children, using TV as a babysitter. According to Bachtel, raising a child should be a parents most important priority (478). These statements are losing focus on how television affects children. It is centered on the actions
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