The advantages and disadvantages of television

Television has become an integral part of Taiwanese life fro the last decade. However, there is no doubt that television has caused cultural change. While some changes have positive aspects, others have negatively affected our society.

On the one hand, its positive benefits are obvious. To start with, some educational or informative programs give people an easy way to acquire knowledge. People can watch such programs as National Geography, Discovery Channel or Open University programs to enhance their perspective about the world. Moreover, watching television provides people with up-date business concept, as there are tons of commercials on each channel. Additionally, the reasonable price of cable TV provides people with a variety of entertainment, and also provides a great chance for families to increase their interaction.

On the other hand, television may carry some potential drawbacks. The reason for this is that today commercial advertisement is prevalent throughout the television channels, which may encourage people to constantly buy. Hence, people’s values are often manipulated by advertisers, and more and more people are becoming materialistic. Furthermore, too many programs are misleading. For instance, some are full of inapt, violence or sensational materials, which may jeopardize our teenagers. Last but not least, lots of studies carried out indicate that television has the high potential to result in ‘’civilization diseases’’. This is because people spend too much time in front of television, instead of doing other out door activities or keeping in contact with others. Consequently, more people are maintaining an unhealthy life style. Things such as diabetes or poor eyesight are considered linked with watching too television.

To conclude, having considered all the arguments above, personally, I agree that television indeed has its positive aspects in terms of education and entertainment. Yet, the drawbacks of television are difficult to overlook. Therefore, people have to balance their leisure time and not spend much time in front of a cold equipment or become a television addict.