Television Addiction - Essay Example

TV viewing becomes more than a relaxing activity but a mere way of passing time. One’s ability to concentrate on an activity when TV is on remains low as even one cannot sustain the conversation. The response is equally the same when the conversation is either of substantial importance or not. Over the years, scholars have tried to ascertain whether watching of violent movies influences an individual to act out violently, but the focus has never been on the addictive aspect of a television.

Primarily, television addiction is the spending of too much time in watching television or watching it more than initially intended. It can also be the constant thinking about how to reduce watching it or the making of unsuccessful continuous attempts to reduce the hours spent in front of it. Tentatively, those with this form of addiction tend to exhibit withdrawal symptoms once deprived off their frequent viewing (Large 98). On the contrary, watching too much television does not necessarily imply an addiction to the same.

Television is an informative tool mostly used to educate and pass relevant information across a wide audience. However, it becomes addictive when they feel that they need to minimize the time they spend watching it and instead engage on something useful. This is often an inward drive and not external. Primarily, watching of television is a leisure activity that does not derail one from their normal routine or activities. Arguably, others tend to speculate that time that the time devoted in front of a TV set portrays the love for TV and not the addiction.

However, the reaction to emergencies tends to be slow in those who devote their time to television viewing rather than those who are doing other things (Large 98). This is high because people tend to switch off their responses and become passive as they indulge in television viewing. Similarly, the effects displayed in watching TV and those of a tranquilizer tend to relate. The two make the body be in an inert state that with the effects wearing slowly offs the body. According to Kubey and Mihaly, members of the middle class tend to feel the guilt more than the lower class, as they tend to feel that time they spent on TV should have been on something constructive.

For the lower class addicts, the hours spent on watching TV tend to de rewarding rather than satisfying (Large 98). In essence, there emerge the heavy viewers and the light viewers. First, the heavy viewers are those who spend more than four hours of their day in front of a TV while the light viewers are those that watch it for only two hours a day. Essentially, the viewer content is what keeps the viewer glued to a TV screen for a great number of hours. The images displayed make the brain remain glued to TV screen for hours.

For one to continue viewing in A conscious manner they need not give in to electric response of the brain that is switching off when television switches off. This would mean that their sense of relaxation ended when they switched off TV (Large 97). In addition, the two scientists found out that a greater number of adults viewed themselves as addicts rather than the teenagers. They also found out that the adult’s ability to concentrate on a different activity after the switching off was hard, as it affected their moods.

In conclusion, television addiction is the mind perception of an individual. The verdict on whether one is addicted to TV or not, solely lies with an individual and not on any external influences. In my view, people’s addiction on TV amounts to the levels of judgments portrayed when glued to screen of a TV