Life Without Television Essay

Author's Note: This is the only essay assignment I had for my COM 105 class (though I wish we could have had more of these and less of the single paragraph assignments), and from this point on all of my writing time will be focused on my reasearch paper since that is the last grade we will be receiving in the class. I received a 25/25 on the paper, which is an A letter grade, despite the fact that there was one area where I strayed a little off topic. Despite this, I am presenting the essay in its original, unedited form.

Life Without Television

I dream of a world of higher intellects, where people read much more than they do and participate in intellectual debates and other activities that require more thinking and less zombifying in front of an electronic device that does not always produce high-quality intellectual programming. I think with the passing time and the increase of more and more television viewing over the years our culture loses some things, and while I do not think that all television programming is negative for us, I think the majority of it is and only helps in leading to some of the problems we face, and will continue to face, unless the culture of reality television changes. Life without television, I think, would only improve, and on a much more specific scale would lower the level of child obesity this country has, increase the level of intellectualism in most people, and people’s individual level of aesthetic tastes would improve overall.

If television where to end today, I think you would see a vast improvement in child obesity within a few months, and while television is not the only cause for this problem that we face currently, it is one of the main stimulants. We live in a culture, compared to others around the world, which does not put as much effort into combating this problem as we should. If there were no television, I think children would be more prone to go outside and play, take a walk with friends, hang out at the mall for hours on end and browse, and would also later have a more positive suggestion to exercise as often as possible and that it can also be rewarding later in their lives if they do so. There would probably no longer be the routine of coming home from school, grabbing a snack or two, and then turning on the television and sitting and watching for hours on end while their bodies and minds desperately cry out for exercise. Instead, there would be the routine of coming home; possibly getting homework completed first, since they would no longer be distracted, and then hanging out with friends and doing various recreational activities that would help stimulate more exercise. At the minimum, I do think that television has a place in the things to address when dealing with child obesity and do believe that it is one of the major deterrents for progressing out of the rut that child obesity currently has us in.

On the level of intellectualism, I think our society faces a very large hurdle to climb when it comes to anti-intellectualism thought and the role that television plays towards feeding it. I think it is because of some of the sophomoric humor that most of our top watched sitcoms contain as well as the fact that the majority of television being watched is reality-based, sitcoms, or talk shows, which the majority to me seem to represent, and stimulate growth of this further, the anti-intellectual, sophomoric humor engaging section of the population which seems to me to be in the majority. This is the reason why, I think, that we hear comments pertaining to “Ivory Towers”, and similar sentiments that suggest that just because people think more, study more, or like to be intellectually more engaged in something, that suddenly the opinions of these people should not matter at all and are always totally way off base because they apparently do not have the cunning intellect of the average Joe, which to me, does not like to always engage in intellectual forethought on a daily basis and would rather watch hours of intellectual disengaging television every day. Mind you, I do not think that television is the sole contributor of this problem, but I do think that it is one of the major contributors since, when compared to other societies, “the average American watches over 4½ hours of television every single day”.

It is because of some of the things that the average American watches on television that leads me to believe that television is definitely one of the factors for decreasing aesthetic tastes when it comes to most forms of art and entertainment. We no longer, as a majority whole, enjoy more quality pieces of art as we once did before the onset of television. The majority of people that listen to music, like what is played on the radio, which in my mind is not always the best samples of the larger musical world to enjoy, and I think it is because of shows like American Idol and others that are similar, that stimulate this lower level of aesthetic tastes that the majority of Americans prefer. All in all, like anything, I do not believe that television is the only factor in causing this decline, but I do believe that it plays an important role and that if we were to ever decrease our television viewing amounts, I think you would start to see a slow, but steady, increase in aesthetic values across the whole of our culture.

In conclusion, while I do not think that television is the sole factor in contributing to some of our problems as a society, I do believe that it is one of the main ones and I could see things improving much, for the better, if people within this society would just watch a little less television each day. The problems of child obesity, the decrease in intellectualism, and the decreasing aesthetic tastes of the populace would see a slow, but dramatic increase in my opinion if we just started finding other hobbies to enjoy and put as much time in them as we do with our television watching. In the end, I am not saying that all of television is bad, in fact I think that there is a decent sized amount of good programming out there, whether it would be creativity stimulating shows like Lost, or intellectual programming like that of what you would find on channels such as The History Channel and The Science Channel, that lead credence to why some television viewing can be good for us, but in the end I think it all boils down to the quality of the programs we watch on the majority level, and the amount that we watch them being the two major things that we should think about and reconsider the next time we turn on the tube.