The Impact of Television on People in the Modern World - Research Paper Example

TV programs have a unique, addictive nature which makes us forget or postpone even the most important engagements easily. Many of us give more importance to the TV set than our family members. The remote control is probably the most sought after asset in every home by every person. Commercial TV started its broadcast in the late 1920s. Paul Nipkow, John Baird, Charles Jenkins – many names are associated with the invention of television. R.J. Reiman, the author of the book “Who Invented Television?

” points out Nipkow’s scanning disk was the inspiration for John Baird to produce a mechanical television set. He started broadcasting commercially in 1926 in Great Britain. Charles Jenkins started popularizing mechanical television sets during the same time in North America. “The Queens Messenger” is the officially recorded drama ‘radioed through television’. It was aired on September 11, 1928. Only four televisions sets were present in the Schenectady area of New York then.

Those television sets broadcasted this drama (Hilliard, 2010). Many different channels were broadcasting individually in the 1920s. It was in the early 1930’s national TV stations started to appear in the US. Charles Jenkins sold several television sets all over North America and ran his own broadcast station from July 1928. He was the first person to air a TV commercial. The mechanical televisions were very complex to handle and operate. The electronic television sets took them over in a short period. Allen B. Du Mont patented the first CRT television successfully in 1931, and the rest became history.

By the 1950s, television became an integral part of every home in the US and many European cities. Russian scientist Zworykin patented an electronic colour television system way back in 1925. But, colour televisions designed by RCA laboratories were the first to come into the market in 1953. Modern-day television sets are much more advanced than these machines. It is hard to believe Paul Nipkow’s disk had just 18 lines of resolution compared to today’s HD TV’s with 1080p resolution.

All this development took place within a century.