Television is a huge part of the American Lifestyle. We watch tv while doing housework or homework, we watch tv with friends, we even use it as a way to bond with our families. According to Nielsenwire, "82% of homes have more than 1 television set"; Americans even have multiple television sets in our houses so everyone can watch their own show.
This week we talked about television and we were asked to watch TV while counting the technical events, watch the news without the sound, watch someone else watching TV, and then watch the TV set without it being turned on. The results were interesting.
A TV set is just another inanimate object, but what's on it is what entrances us to keep watching it. We even label it as a form of entertainment even though all we do when we watch TV is sit there and just stare. The sports games, the talk shows, the reality tv shows, and all the other shows we enjoy watching trick us into being interested by adding many technical events such as voice overs, fade ins/outs, zoom ins/outs, and cuts to different scenes. This way, there is so much going on that you don't even realize what you're watching really isn't that exciting. You just sit there and stare at a screen, mesmerized by all the "exciting" things going on before you.
It's so true what you said about how some families has a lot of TVs. Mine has way too many! More than the number of people in our family.
ReplyDeleteI've thought about this many times. I believe for many people it's mental stimulation, an escape and a method analyze humans & social situations(which explains some of the fascination with reality TV). Apart from tv, people with ADHD are susceptible to internet addiction because of the intense amount of mental stimulation it offers.
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