Personal tv history assignment - Essay Example

Further, viewing television is not only an individual act of one’s choice, but often it is a result of adjustment, negotiation, compromises and imitation of others in the child’s environment.” Although my TV viewing was not overly restricted by other members of the family (usually they took over the TV at night until they finally broke down and bought me my own TV when I was still in grade school), the choices I made in programming and the amount of time I spent with the TV were definitely influenced by external influences.

In reflecting on my own TV watching experience, I remember only turning on the set when I was bored and couldn’t find anything else to do, but I also remember being bored often, that we, as a family, never did anything interesting. My mother indicates I would have rather watched TV than do anything else, even watching TV when we went to visit friends and relatives. This is a huge difference in perspectives that still manifested in me watching TV all the time. My mother saw it as a prime source of entertainment while I perceived TV to be little more than a time-filler between one event and the next.

This begins to indicate an incredible failure to communicate between myself and my mother that is further demonstrated in our difference in viewing preferences. My mother has indicated that when she did watch TV, it was usually news programs or ‘prime time’ television, typically things like the sit-coms I liked to watch. However, she also indicates that it was a very rare occasion when she’d sit down and watch a program with me. This comes closer to coinciding with my memory, in which my parents chose to purchase a small TV for me rather than attempt to negotiate television watching time or selection of programs.

Because this was my television, there was no compromising with my younger