If you go outside in the evening and look around, then by the specific flickering of televisions in the windows you can unmistakably determine what numerous neighbors and residents of nearby houses are doing. But modern young people are gradually abandoning television and prefer the Internet as an alternative. Why do they do this? Why is TV so bad?
TV is outdated
They show the same people on TV that everyone has known for a long time and, frankly, are already pretty tired of. These people again and again take part in programs of an outdated format. Experienced television fans involuntarily memorize films, TV series, talk shows, even advertisements. Endless repetitions predictably lead viewers to degradation.
This is because these people and their projects that have taken over television are politically pleasing. They will not criticize the authorities, express harmful opinions and, one way or another, influence the established situation. All the free and bold creators, meanwhile, are taking YouTube by storm and are worth paying attention to.
TV eats up your time
At first, viewers watched the programs when they had free time. Then they came up with TV series and viewers began to live when they had free time from TV.
Different studies give us different statistics, but they are all equally terrible. A modern city dweller spends several hours a day watching television, which makes up most of his free time. That is, the life of a modern person mainly consists of three processes - work, sleep and TV. Great, right?
Imagine spending 2-3 hours in the gym every day. Communicating with family. For an interesting book or writing a novel. To develop your own perpetual motion machine. Now forget it. You'll never do any of this if you're a TV junkie.
By the way, don’t you think that each new episode of your favorite TV series acts on you like a dose on a drug addict: it soothes the burning sensation for an hour, and then you are already craving a new dose?
How does TV affect children?
Unfortunately, modern parents do not always find time to take care of their children. And when they are capricious, you need to play with them and entertain them. But you need to cook food and work. Then it's time for the TV nanny. The easiest way is to sit the child in front of him and turn on cartoons.
Do you think that nothing terrible is happening and everyone is happy? Moreover, cartoons are educational? But no. Let's take a look at what can happen to a child when constantly watching “good” programs:
- nervous system disorders (stuttering, aggressiveness, insomnia, headache);
- vision problems due to overstrain of the eye muscles, subsequently – strabismus and myopia;
- telemania, when a person is addicted to TV;
- obesity - since the child is bored while watching, especially when he is alone at home, he begins to consume sandwiches, chips and other unhealthy foods;
- decrease in intellectual level - when watching, the brain does not strain, there is no need to think.
All these problems can also arise in an adult.
Negative influence in the current moment can seriously affect the future: both on the physical and moral state.
I will not tire of repeating that a person, and especially a child, must develop. The ability to sit on the couch in front of the screen will not give you anything. But other talents that are important to develop can bring success.
Take care of yourself
Every time I come to visit my mother, she tells me to cut my hair and shave. This is already a habit for her. But sometimes she turns out to be right. If you look in the mirror, you can see that there is something to work on.
Especially after 30 years. During this period, there is a need to monitor the health of facial skin, for example.
Instead of watching TV, you can tidy up your face, head, fingernails and toenails. After that, pay attention to your clothes. Put shoes and outerwear in order. Sort through socks and underwear. Fold T-shirts, shirts and sweatshirts. Clean up your closet and bedside tables so that in the future everything will be in its place. In general, give yourself an hour of neatness.
We were all born innocent...
I saw my first movie, The Lion King, in 1994.
I was three years old. Although I had seen moving pictures before, like most families, my parents strictly restricted me not only from screens, but from anything electrical. This was correct because our brains, especially children's brains, don't stand a chance against the power of video. Video has an equally strong impact on vision, hearing and spatial sensations, it also triggers our motion detectors and awakens emotions. Video triggers activity throughout the right hemisphere of the brain. The TV creators knew this from the very beginning. As Malcolm Gladwell showed in Boiling Point, the creators of Sesame Street used a tool called Distractor to chart children's attention.
“For each episode, we had information about every seven and a half seconds, so about 400 reference points. If we connected all these dots with one red line, it would look like a Wall Street stock price. It could drop suddenly or gradually decline, and we would stop to figure out what was going on. Sometimes the interest graph came close to the top border of the table, we noted the segments that truly captured the children’s attention.”
This was in the 60s. Imagine what attention management capabilities video content producers have now. Although Sesame Street's goal was very noble—teaching children to read, write, and do math—even then, understanding neuropsychology was critical to the show's survival. A month and a half before the premiere of the show, the creators realized that children did not like it when fictional and real elements coexisted in the frame. Psychologists believed that it was impossible to mix dolls and real people: it would upset children, but they were not interested in looking at adults alone, so the show distributors ignored this advice.
“We decided to write a letter to specialists in the field of developmental psychology that we are aware of the danger of mixing fantasies and reality. But we'll do it anyway. Otherwise we’re screwed.”
Don't people and dolls mix? Now it's the other way around
Hacking our brains has been a top priority for video content creators. Their survival depended on him.
It was an internal defect in the system.
It’s like doping in the Tour de France: either you don’t take it, or you try your best to expose it. Did the creators of Sesame Street have good intentions by exploiting the parts of our brain that are easily tricked? Certainly! But, nevertheless, it was exploitation. As a result, all our innocence went down the drain.
Good
In addition to its educational value not only for children, watching TV can relieve stress.
This is a kind of refuge in which we can hide and return with calm but tired eyes. Research suggests that spending time in a “fantasy and imaginary world” is a possible short-term substitute for social activities:
“By analyzing the possibility of replacing rest, we found that tired people look for social surrogates, which in turn help them regain self-control. [The results] show that after exhausting self-discipline exercises, people are happy to direct their attention to familiar fantasy worlds (such as their favorite TV shows). Additional analysis suggests that, by their social nature, these familiar fantasy worlds promote relaxation.”
If you or your friends watch the same series, then you can discuss it when you leave the surrogate world and go offline.
Your favorite character can inspire you to make an important but exciting decision in real life. Going to see Thor 3: Ragnarok on a Friday night after finishing my last article in this series was a nice reward. I laughed, was immersed in another world and was endlessly inspired.
But in March 2008 everything was not so rosy.
TV makes you unhappy
Oh, these series! For housewives - soapy, for fashionistas - glamorous, for intellectuals - Dr. House and Explosion. You begin to follow other people's lives with curiosity, then it captivates you, then it becomes a part of you. Other people's quarrels and truces, weddings and divorces, other people's thoughts and other people's feelings. And now the television heroine becomes closer to the person sleeping next to her on the pillow. I think that if we spent as much time on our loved ones as on moving pictures, there would be an order of magnitude fewer divorces.
Information overdose
We have already written recently about the benefits of an information diet. Television doesn't just make you an information glutton, it cripples you. Remember how yesterday you sat in front of the TV and watched a movie, then a show. Advertising. News.
Every commercial break, every newscast consists of separate short stories, separate stories that have been poured and mixed in your head. Over the course of an evening, you receive so much completely useless information that there is no room left for useful information.
Tablets, pads, beer, bank, beer, soda, pads, beer, tablets, cars, coffee, soda, supermarket, pads, beer, Nokia, tablets... and again in a circle.
Aren't you tired?
Yes, I know, advertising allows you to film programs and show them to TV viewers for free. But what is happening now on the screen is beyond this explanation. On some channels, up to 50% of every hour of broadcasting is advertising. Watching an hour and a half movie turns into an entire evening's activity, and the star show lasts until the stars appear in the sky. Is it too much to pay for the right to watch dubious programs?
Get organized
There is always something to improve. If you are at home when you read this article, look up from the screen for 5 seconds and assess the situation. Most likely you will find objects and things that are out of place. Individually, this may seem harmless, but if you look into each room to assess the clutter, you will likely realize that something needs to be done.
Of course, I could be wrong. Maybe you have perfect order because you just recently cleaned the whole house. But in most cases, we have things to do in order in the house.
And the habit of keeping your home clean cannot be superfluous.
So instead of watching TV, clean up your house. You will say “Thank you” to yourself for this.
What is the use of TV
Useful methods of using television:
- the main advantage of television is the free viewing of films, series and television programs;
- if you have the ability to exclude meaningless programs in favor of full-fledged and educational ones, then spending time behind a blue screen will have a very positive impact;
- educational programs, television programs about the world around us, about the results of human achievements, about the formation of relationships between people, about historical events provide an excellent opportunity for self-education and self-education;
- TV makes it possible to keep abreast of current events, sensations and incidents;
- have an idea of how celebrities live and what they do;
- entertainment and music programs help to calm down and cheer up after a hard day at work;
- many quickly fall asleep watching TV, which is important for those suffering from insomnia;
- sports programs help you stay fit and exercise at home;
- by watching culinary programs, you can learn the art of cooking;
- Thanks to television broadcasts, the government can inform the population on a massive scale.
IMPORTANT. Use television programs wisely and beneficially for your health and outlook.
There are positive sides
What is so attractive about watching TV programs? Of course, there are some advantages to this action. In particular, it helps restore mental state due to stress that occurs during difficult work days. I enjoy the fascinating plot, I get involved in the viewing process, which helps me disconnect for a while from the problems that surround me every day. Television allows you to significantly expand your horizons and helps you establish communication with friends and work colleagues through discussions of programs.
TV makes you poorer
The disadvantage of TV is not even that advertising forces us to buy things we don’t need. A much bigger problem is that you, completely unwittingly, on a subconscious level, are imbued with the spirit of consumerism in the most unsightly sense of the word.
Blindly chasing after other people's values makes our wallets empty, but does not bring happiness.
TV inspires us that a person’s level completely coincides with the price of the watch on his wrist, and the most correct dream in life is the latest model of a fashionable car.
Analysis of my addiction
After listening to a psychologist, I came to the conclusion that I am not obsessed with television, but there are certain prerequisites for this. Will I be able to spend the evening chatting with my husband or reading an interesting book instead of my favorite program? How much more attentive will I be to my own family if I stop following the lives of the characters in TV series? That's why I wanted to step away from TV for a week. But if a week is not a long time for someone, for me a serious test lay ahead, and this only intensified my nervousness. What if I can’t?
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How the love for television began
I work in the media, so it is generally accepted that watching TV is rather my professional duty, but this is just an excuse. I became addicted to the world of television programs since childhood, when I watched with great interest bright Disney fairy tales on the channel that showed them all day long from early morning. I also liked the scientific and educational programs that I fell asleep to in middle school. And as a high school student, I began to watch news channels with interest, which was the choice of my profession.
Why don’t I watch and don’t want to watch TV at all?
Hello, friends! In today's article I will tell you why I don't watch TV. It sounds strange, but it's true. I don't have one. And not because I don’t have the opportunity to buy a TV box - I have no desire to buy it.
For some of you this will sound crazy. “How can it be... But there is news, there are interesting programs!”
Show me at least one interesting program that is worth spending time on. I don’t argue, there are such people. But adjusting to the time of her television broadcast is not entirely convenient. After all, there is the Internet, where I can watch ANY program that interests me at ANY time (there is YouTube, after all). And then, I do this quite rarely, because sometimes there is not enough time.
I've noticed that many people, even when they're not watching TV, still turn it on in the background. Let him mumble or sing something... What is it? Dependency on the "box"? Or the need for some sounds in the background? Some people like to have something constantly making noise in their house.
But it just so happens that I can’t stand extraneous noise, which interferes with both concentration and relaxation. If I have a need for extraneous sounds, I will turn on music. If I want to watch a movie, I’ll find it on the Internet or go to the cinema. And I read the news that interests me on my tablet.
TV doesn't fit into my routine in any way!
“What about the President’s New Year’s greetings? - you say. “You have to watch it on TV anyway!”
Buying a TV just for one day a year is, you see, stupid. And all interesting programs (including New Year’s ones) can be successfully watched on a laptop. Don't forget that we live in the era of the World Wide Web. Bringing the Internet into your home is not a problem today. And you can watch any TV channel online.
Now it has become fashionable to connect cable TV with digital channels. People pay several hundred rubles a month for a hundred channels, and then don’t know what to do with all this stuff. This is how time passes, hugging the remote control...
Well, tell me, are all these channel packages offered for the convenience of people? No one will watch all the channels – there simply isn’t enough time for that. But in the minds of people who have connected a package of 100 TV channels, a mess arises. By scrolling through them all, they are simply killing their precious time. And companies that provide cable TV connections rub their hands together every month, counting fabulous profits.
Getting hooked on a subscription fee is a very effective way to make money, I want to tell you.
Well, it’s time to end this article. I conveyed my main idea to you.
Do you watch TV? What TV channels and programs do you like? Maybe you watch TV series? Please share in the comments.
Best regards, Sergey Chesnokov
Take up a hobby
Hobbies always help. Moreover, they can be changed and alternated with each other. My hobbies are constantly changing. I like to do different things. Just a year ago I was into Junk Journal, but now I’m interested in concrete products. For example, I make tabletop fireplaces. It turns out beautiful.
Choose an activity that brings you pleasure and hone the skill - develop in it. Perhaps there is a creator inside of you who needs help to wake up. And the TV takes away his energy.
