Undoubtedly, television has millions of viewers in the world and thanks to its inventor Philo Farnsworth, a Utah-born genius that had coloured the world of modern technology. Nowadays, people use television as a mass of communication, to learn from how to style to how to make a bomb, to tie a good family bonding, and even to watch their favourite sit-com series.
Of course, with its few advantages, television has many more disadvantages.As we have stepped into the twentieth century, this thingamajig has proven to give its viewers a lot of disadvantages such as health problems, violence, and last but not least, escapism from the actual world. First and foremost, health problems are one of the disadvantages that make television as one of the worst inventions in the world. People are mostly sitting and eating junk food when they are watching their favourite television shows and it may lead to obesity, (Leong 2008; Hermann 2010).
Leong (2008) further argued that men are likely to be obese when they watch television for three or more hours compared to men who do not. As supported by Smith (2010), lack of exercise to children will create a bad lifestyle to them that could last forever. Further, watching television constantly may harm the viewer’s eyesight. Assuming you are watching your favourite TV show Oprah Winfrey in a dark condition – with no lights on, you are stretching your iris and in a short period it will affect your eyesight. It is crystal clear that this thingamajig contributes to health problems to its viewers.Secondly, violence and other inapt contents are among the disadvantages for this so-called worst invention of all times.
Smith (2010) indicated that television characters are usually portraying inappropriate behaviours like smoking, using vulgar language, sexual activity and children will tend to model their favourite stars. She further discussed that children are easily frightened by violence and it is harmful to children. Besides, television show like Sesame Street has depicted a bad example to children by featuring Katy Perry, an American well-known singer for her sexiness.Moreover, a wrestling competition show WWE has shown very much violence to people especially children who are still immature. In consequence, children will tend to fight with their friends or family members despite of the dangerousness of being hurt. It is undeniable that violence and inapt contents are contributed by this so-called worst invention of all times.
In spite of violence and inapt contents, however last but not least, escapism and procrastination are among the disadvantages of television.Brescia (2009) indicated that the hypnotizing effect of television could lead viewers to absurdity; because the “orienting response” and spinning television images have sucked out the brain’s energy. She further argued that instead of getting some refreshment, we get swayed. Furthermore, people especially students who spend more than fifteen hours a week watching their favourite television tend to procrastinate from doing their homework, revising notebooks, less quality time with family and prone to be in their own worlds.According to Smith (2010), adults who spend most of their time in front of television will keep away themselves from doing more productive activities in their lives.
It is clear-cut that escapism and procrastination are among the disadvantages of television. In a nutshell, it is true that television does bring a lot of harmful effects and disadvantages to human beings and it is among the worst inventions of all times.There are many ways that people can use to escape from busy lifestyle rather than investing their luxurious time watching television and get drowned in its hypnotization. Besides, violence and inapt contents are also harmful to human beings because children especially, they are easily influenced by their environments. Last but not least, the invention of television also contributes to bad health effects.
As civilised people, we cannot easily get influenced by modern inventions nowadays and we need to think critically about the pros and cons.
