How Does Television Affect Our Brain - Essay Example

How Does Television Affect Our Brain? by In my essay I will discuss the influence of TV on the mental abilitites of people. The reasons of good and bad influence as well as recommendations for the better usage of television will be presented. Composition will show consequences and problems connected to the immoderate and unreasonable usage of television by children and adults. The importance of TV and similar to it internet will be considered. Tha nature of television and the reason of its huge influence on human mind will be explained. Psychological aspects will be taken in consideration as the means for understanding roots of bad influence on the intelligence and imaginative skills of a person. Television has a particular and significant place in our day-to-day life. Everywhere we go, at home, at friends, in the shopping mall or in university a lot of different screens are used for different purposes. But not all of them are TV-sets in its ordinary meaning because with modern progressive computers, the Internet and tablets substituted television. They have done it because they been available to offer not only TV programs but also everything there is to watch, listen to and read or play. So nowadays television is not as popular and mighty as it was before the time of the Internet. TV is still however continues to be one of the most incredibly wide spread mechanisms of any media coverage including political propaganda. Internet and global communication breaktrough with new technologies like 3g and wi-fi successfully competited TV in their struggle for the domination over the population’s activities. Golden Age of TV is obviously going to its end. Nevertheless it is still one of the most total and global means of communication and receiving information all across the world, in every country on each continent. Overall the influence of TV on the brain health, behaviour and mental abilities can be described both as bad and as good. A lot of specialists and researchers state that watching too much television, especially by children around five years old can lead to a damaged brain structures and brain disorder (Clifford, 1995). For a full grown man’s brain it can limit almost down to zero his ability to focus and pay attention to anything. It is very accurately pointed that TV is an attention eater. How many times did you notice that in spite of the fact that there isn’t something interesting you are nevertheless watching television during waiting for your doctor’s appointment or in the subway? Human behaviour and mental abilities can be influenced seriously by the television. If we take average child of age from four to eight we can definitely state that the effect of TV will be very significant and its bad or good consequences will depend on the kind of programs and periodicity of watching them. If TV takes a lot of kid’s free time his behaviour, psychic condition, mental abilities and attention skills could be shattered and lead to a great behavioral disorder (Schramm, 1961). Watching TV is like being hypnotized because most of the networks programs build the concepts of their programs on the inability of viewer sometimes even to go to the restroom if he wants to. If children watch violent and aggressive action movies or horror films which are of course not for them then they could easily become violent and aggressive individuals in future. By watching some age acceptable programs damage can be done too. For example if a child watches some phantasy and adventurous heroic epics this child can easily become anti-social and will have a desire to live in his imaginative reality which will eventually lead to all kind of different problems while trying to adapt in the society (Tupper 1991). The ability to concentrate and memorize is one of the most necessary tools of our brain which helps it function well and in an organized way. By watching too many television programs these most essential abilities can lower down and decrease our level of intelligence. Children are often watch too many television because they can’t get their parent’s attention and also because they don’t know how and where to put their own interest (Simpson 2004). For them, who are small and not ready for the real world the box full of different people talking about different things all the time is something magical and curious. The development of the child should be distinguished strictly because TV can also provide benefit if it is used properly and with cleverness. So to not affect any harm television should be diluted fairly by reading, listening, walking, going out etc. (Medina 2014). Existing in such chain made from different mediums television can bring advantage in the face of educational programs and of course cartoons and animation series which are healthy for the children’s imagination. It is neccecary for us to explain what we understand by brain and what exact brain functions can be harmed by television. The solution of our problem won’t be found if we will treat brain and brain abilities in a narrow way. First of all brain is an organ and medically and physically can be damaged by the active influence of different frequency waves that come from electronics. Of course such damage nowadays is lowered down to minimum because of the mass usage of all kinds of electronic devices. However there are rare cases of people who can not appear in the radius of activity of electromagnetic fields. Such people are not common and their condition is more psychic than physical. But it is a fact that the brain is affected most by the psychic confrontations and physical harm which is done by television mainly to the senses like vision and hearing. So the most important influence both bad or in not so often cases good is done by television through psychic channels. From the practices of psychotherapy and psychology we know that our emotions and intelligence as well as our intellectual, logical and thinking abilitites which are all in fact nearly same, are influenced most of all by the psychic confrontations. Psychological problem of TV appears when it is used more often than needed. As I said earlier children are influenced more than adults almost always despite the sources of this influence. Everything that is more than needed is not good. Balance, golden mean and harmony are what all people should stick to. When harmony is disrupted problems start to appear. Attention, reaction, imagination and communicative skills are the functions that deteriorate most often in people addictive to TV, videogames or internet surfing. Their psychic field and brain functions are concentrated on one thing. Despite this obvious fact they think that various programms, films, games or different sites in the internet make their limited activity seem diverse. That is not true even if such person sees all the world through the monitor. In our cases it doesn’t matter that such behaviour is not healthy for the body as well as for the social interconnection betweeen individuals. Most of all our imagination, intelligence and ability to clearly and adequately see the world around us is harmed because TV substitutes our life. To be simple it is affordable to say that life itself is a consumption of information through the senses. But it is in people’s hands to decide what information they want to absorb as well as where, how, with whom and for how long in order to build individual experience. The major problem of television is the fact that it tries to substitute real life of people with the vision of reality instead of reality itself. That is an evil and a corrupt trick and people who fall for it are mostly children or if it is an adult person then his or her individual psychic and intellectual abilitites exist on a low level. If it is not so then why limit our experience? Everything around us is in this modern world tries to limit our perception and it is very difficult to use new technologies with more benefit than harm. It is a widespread fact that old people like to watch TV. It is also well known that in most cases they watch foolish TV-shows, quizes, soap-operas of a low quality etc. Old people’s life comes to its eventual end and like their body slowly stops to operate in a proper way so is their brain which decreases its activity and feels comfortable with wathcing whatever there is on the brainwasher (as it is sometimes very smartly called). Of course they can be justfied because they no longer have the ability to absorb real life experince with travelling, going out with friends or something else. But young people and most of all parents who allow their kids watch television as much as these children want cannot and must not be justified. Another interesting part of this problem is the reason why such parasitic existence of TV is permitted by those who freely agree for the damage caused by idiot box (another funny but true expression). The reason lies in the concept of escapism. Escapism is a part of sociophobic and reserved and unsociable condition of mind and intelligence. People who are not satisfied with their lives try to change intentionally their uncomfortable real life with imaginative life of videogames or TV shows. That is a psychological problem which lies deeply in mind and by staying there only makes real life of a person worse. Watching TV doesn’t help to deal with real daily problems because it can only distract our attention and put it somewehere else while the real problem will stay there in mind as long as it will not be directly confronted. In such cases TV is similar to the mentioned above videogames as well as drugs, alcohol, nimphomania etc. All this bad medicine tries to cure the symphtoms and not ilness itself. Such disservice not only makes more harm than good but becomes problem itself. As a very sharp example we can use the incredibly widespread phenomenon of Hikikomori in modern Japan. Hikikomori or simply Hikki is a formed type of a reclusive person that hides from the society and environment in his or her room without job and stays in this condition during months and even years. They are supported by their parents and most of all spend their time watching TV or browsing internet. There is an opinion about all the visual kinds of information (films, paintings, and comics) which says that our imagination decreases and our creative ability is not working when we receive the information in picture. However adults can easily give equal attention to both viewed and read material. But a child who is not resistible to the outer environment can easily be tricked by television which transforms his vision of reality. So by this deformation of perception the ability of child to differ what is true and what is not is in danger and this ability is one of the main tools which direct us towards the knowledge and experience (Medina, 2014). Nowadays the problem can’t and won’t be solved if we only want to help new generation limit their time of watching TV. The problem nowadays is wider because young people are no longer interested in TV or in TV only. Internet is a far greater problem so the recent issue is to help younger people operate without electronics but with their own ideas. By using internet for every purpose we stop training our memory. But the good things always walk side by side with bad things. Internet is giving us a possibility of choice between what we want to see and what not. That is good and in any case better than just watch television whatever it shows. But back to the problem of new generation and kids. I think that their obsession only with TV is coming to its end. But it doesn’t mean that the problem is solved because new obsession can do as much harm or even more depending on circumstances. New generations should follow the same advice of diluting their free time fairly between different activities and not substitute them with only one which is in our case a television. References Simpson Brian. (2004). Children and Television. London: A&C Black Tupper David E. (1991). The Neuropsychology of Everyday Life: Issues in Development and Rehabilitation. New-York: Springer Science & Business Media Medina John. (2014). New-York: Brain Rules for Baby, Pear Press Clifford R. Brian , Barrie Gunter. (1995). Television and Children. Chicago: Psychology Press Schramm Wilbur. (1961). Television in the Lives of Our Children. New-York: Stanford University Press Read More