The Harmful effect of television free essay sample

The Harmful Effects of Watching Television In a culture where most people have at least two TV sets in their homes and are obsessed with watching television, it is almost impossible to neglect pointing out the possible harmful effects of watching too much television. Television certainly has much to offer, and without a doubt is a great innovation. But when it comes to relying on it, whether to be informed or entertained, it can certainly affect people negatively. Here are the main harmful effects of watching television that you should always keep in mind Television is bad for your health Watching television means inactivity, and inactivity has been linked with obesity and heart disease. Do you think it is just a coincidence that in the West, where people are spending enormous amounts of time watching television, obesity and heart diseases in people of all ages are rapidly increasing? More and more studies are being carried out on the harmful health effects of watching television. We will write a custom essay sample on The Harmful effect of television or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page A recent research study conducted at the Harvard School of Public Health indicates that watching too much television can significantly increase the risk of developing obesity and type 2 diabetes. Not surprisingly, another study carried out at the University of Rhode Island found that prolonged television watching decreases viewers’ sense of self-efficacy in maintaining personal health. Television makes you dumb Another amazingly harmful effect of watching television is the fact it can hinder our ability to think. Having talking heads continuously giving us quick information, opinion, analysis and criticism for just about everything, allows us to stop using our critical thinking. In this way, we can be easily misinformed and manipulated. Certainly there are a few programs on TV that are educational and interesting, but the majority of   television programs are simply trash. And so we rarely find a program on TV that requires us to think. Television programming is designed in such a way so as to match our attention spam, and that is why almost all programs are 30 to 60 minutes long. In addition, television programs rarely dedicate the entire program to a single topic. Hence, not only television programs cannot provide any decent thought to stimulate discussion, but they present information in such a way that we cannot digest it properly. And so we can easily form opinions without allowing the information to be first filtered through our mind, and while we might think that we become more knowledgeable, in reality we become dumb.