Throw out your television, open your mind
admin - March 12th, 2008Most people already know watching television is bad for you. Yet many people ignore the facts about TV’s negative effects and watch anyway. Perhaps they should reconsider the downsides of television.
Television is fattening. Many will try new diets, but won’t move from the couch. Along with the show, viewers often eat junk food — the processed artery-clogging snacks that define our capitalist society. Slouching on the couch in a darkened room, immobile, eyes fixed on the screen, relaxed and mesmerized by bright flashing lights, people start to fade. Scientists know that plants don’t grow as well in artificial light, we know that light from the sun and moon affects the weather and that light can affect your mood. Subjection to these unnatural flickers is obviously harmful to the body.
More than physically, television is mentally unhealthy. Every aspect of television is produced and scripted and cut, meaning in some way or another all of television is fabricated.
Why would you allow yourself to be directly lied to? Perhaps other sources of news or entertainment are no better, but nothing is as convincing as that magic box of pretty colors. It puts you under its spell and convinces you what to think. It’s propaganda of a million different varieties, but it’s a poison you choose to ingest.
TV Land robs you of authentic experiences while teaching you to ignore real issues in the world.
How often is our country’s election broadcasted versus the bloodshed in hundreds of other countries? Do you hear mention of Uganda? What about the incursion of Columbian armed forces that attacked Ecuador at the beginning of March?
Even if such events are mentioned, they get phenomenally disproportionate coverage compared to what Hillary Clinton thinks of Obama in an African dress.
You’ve probably heard all this sort of argument against television since grade school. What’s this article going to change? Nothing. You have to stop allowing yourself to be distracted by the idiot box. You, and you alone.
Cutting down on the amount of television isn’t going to do it. That’s the equivalent of doing crystal meth only a few hours a day. No, you have to throw the whole TV out. Sell it, or donate it to Goodwill.
I’m not even telling you to read; anything would be preferable to the mentally liquefying act of watching TV. It may sound drastic, but it’s something you won’t regret. I enjoy my life without TV; you will too.