Poll: Does television help or hurt us?

[Arkhangelsk]

It's informative, and an easy way to get some real entertainment. Also:

No, just like all things, its must be taken in moderation

This.

 

[Dr Ampersand]

Does television help or hurt us?

Yes.

Oh snap, correct answer except in the cases when it does neither without doing both which is few and far.

My answer is that it depends, do the people in question hurt or help themselves with television?

 

[Xender90]

TV is not evil, but I do think that TV is bad for you. I know several family's that don't have TV and they are interesting, active, moral people. I know some family's that do watch TV all the time and they don't carry on interesting conversations with me, they don't like the active games, and they have really bad imaginations.
This is a generalization and I know not everyone is like this.

 

[Good morning blues]

Television is a bad thing. It doesn't have to be, but it is. Television programming is a wasteland of bland, vacant, and socially regressive tripe. There are clearly exceptions, but the majority of television is absolute trash that does have ill effects on people, whether it's simple changes, such as the fact that people who watch a lot of TV perceive much more crime in the world than actually exists and therefore support worthless law and order policies, or more severe changes, such as the fact that heavy TV watching has been associated with Alzheimer's.

I agree entirely with this, though I think watching youtube for hours on end (like a couple of my friends do) is just as bad.

Out of curiosity, do you know if it the actual watching of the telly that has been associated with Alzheimer's or just having it on. Just curious to see if you know (I don't really watch much telly, it's just there in the background as I read or draw or something).

The study I'm referring to was a survey that just asked how many hours people spent watching TV, so it basically depends on the respondent, although I don't think most people would count time spent wandering around near a set to be time spent watching TV. If you'd like to read the study, the report is in the Summer 2005 issue of Brain & Cognition, you can probably find it at a university library in your area.

edit: It seems I've been beaten to the punch in forming an opinion, to which I will rebut

Television is a bad thing. It doesn't have to be, but it is. Television programming is a wasteland of bland, vacant, and socially regressive tripe. There are clearly exceptions, but the majority of television is absolute trash that does have ill effects on people, whether it's simple changes, such as the fact that people who watch a lot of TV perceive much more crime in the world than actually exists and therefore support worthless law and order policies, or more severe changes, such as the fact that heavy TV watching has been associated with Alzheimer's.

It's certainly not evil. Though I don't watch a lot of it.

There's some great stuff on the History channel (sometimes, when they feel like showing it instead of those strange Monster Quest marathons) and the Travel channel. And comedy central, of course.

This. There are a ton of awesome and informative channels that fascilitate higher learning. I myself really dont watch too much of the tely but when i do its usually one of those channels.

TV *itself* fuels higher learning. It's "making us smarter" so to speak. Allow me to elaborate: Take shows (of the same sort) and compare them today. Police procedural vs cop dramas of today, with things like The Wire (shameless plug. If you haven't seen The Wire, then you are missing out on THE best show in a long long time). Reality shows, the much-maligned "crap" of today even are making us smarter. years ago the equivalent to the reality show was the game show, like Wheel of Fortune. In those days everyone knew all the rules and how things worked; the only variable was who'd win / how much / etc. Nowadays the standard is the prize (sometimes) and the variables are all the rules and hoops you have to jump through. It is making us cognitively smarter, having to juggle different "threads" of plot. Going back to the first example of cop shows, there was at most about 5 people Those Two Guys who were the heroes, their boss, a couple support characters. (I mean recurring, not from episode to episode)In the shows of today, there are Loads and Loads of Characters in almost all of the shows, and the depth to which they go is quantum physics compared to yesterdays algebra. :3 In yesterday's show, it has an introduction, a case, conclusion, mayb ea two-parter that took a while to do. Today's show (stuff like The Wire, it's younger brother The Shield, etc. You have to juggle 5 - 10 different plot points / threads per episode and keep them all straight, and they're all (possibly) interconnected) I'm not saying it's Shakespeare; I'm not saying it does or doesn't have depth, metaphor and commentary on the human condition, simply that it is MORE COMPLEX and thus requires more attention to detail and management (and levels of potential interaction (about said show, etc) than yesterday. For more on this see the book: Everything Bad is Good for You: How Popular Media is Making us Smarter.

edit #2, just a small note on the "thinking there's more crime than there really is and law and order policies" point that was made. This is called the recollection bias - things easier to think of will be more prone to be listed. For instance, if you asked which happens more, fire in your home, plane crash, or a robbery, people would say plane crash, fire, robbery (generally) because that's what we can see and observe, what they focus on. This isn't a problem with *TV ITSELF* it is a problem with the news media in general. You're far more likely to be robbed or what have you than die in a plane crash, but they don't do any stories on that because it's commonly occurring, but when a plane crash happens, it's big news.

I would say that you are mischaracterizing both contemporary and older television. There were plenty of cerebral and detailed shows in the past, and no doubt they exist today, but that doesn't mean that television isn't still a wasteland of vacant crap. We are talking about heavy viewers of television - not people exclusively watching shows like The Wire, The West Wing, and Battlestar Galactica, but people who are in front of the television for hours per day watching things like Jerry Springer, Judge Judy, and Wheel of Fortune (which I would remind you is still on television and doing just as well as ever).

Furthermore, in terms of the the watching TV = more likely to support worthless law & order initiatives thing, I don't see how you can claim that the fact that it's recollection bias doesn't mean that it's a problem with television. Here is the problem: people that watch a lot of TV are supportive of wasteful and useless political policies. They perceive a danger in the world that is not real. This is not merely a problem created by news media, but also by endless mountains of police procedurals and crime dramas. You're right that it's not a problem of the technology of television, but it is a problem with television as a social institution and as it exists in the real world.

 

[bob-2000]

it does both: it gives up good shows, but it gives us mind-numbing shows. It just depends on what you watch.

 

[blindey]

TV is not evil, but I do think that TV is bad for you. I know several family's that don't have TV and they are interesting, active, moral people. I know some family's that do watch TV all the time and they don't carry on interesting conversations with me, they don't like the active games, and they have really bad imaginations.
This is a generalization and I know not everyone is like this.

So basically after you threw that out there...you took it back saying it's not founded on...anything. GJ there.

 

[chimmers]

Arrested Development, Green Wing, QI, [earlier] Scrubs, [earlier] the Simpsons, South Park...

I could go on. These shows all entertain me greatly. They also provide meaningful insight into the world and provoke discussion with my friends. I feel this is important to my development as a person

Also they make one laugh

(though a lot of tv is utter dross, I will say that. And if you want news you need at least 2 different sources...)

 

[The_Echo]

I usually spend most of my time on the Internet, and only watch TV late at night. In particular Nick at Nite and Comedy Central. I haven't found many other channels I like.