Assignment 5 – Dilni Abeyrathne

The television—the bane of entertainment, it seems, in the modern era. So many people see it as a revolutionary device: moving pictures, exciting adventures, and all else associated with the technological entertainment device we call TV. The way I view this entertainment source may, nay, will differ from the norm.

My thoughts on television: it is a decent form of entertainment. My views do not border on hate, nor do they on love. Sometimes, I find myself watching TV, other times I find myself hidden behind a flurry of words and pages. On the days I watch TV, a variety of reasons may be the cause, including, but not limited to, boredom, curiosity, and the desire to experience something new.

Some days I feel the urge to watch TV simply because I have nothing else to do. Other days, I am lured in by the prospect of learning something new. It provides a welcome distraction and an encouraging attraction to daily life. Perhaps there would be a show on Ancient Greece, or Atlantis, or curious weather, or wildlife, or nature. Just think of all the interesting facts I could learn! These represent just a few of the thoughts going through my head whenever a show I like is broadcasted.

On the topic of shows, there are some I like, and some that I extremely dislike, for lack of a better word. First, the likes: I love any show associated with history, astronomy, nature, the weather, and the like. My fondness for those shows stems from their interesting context—I love learning about new things. One of my favorite shows includes “Strangest Weather on Earth”. It is a lovely and curiously interesting show about strange weather across the globe, ranging from iridescent clouds to spherical lightning. Earth’s weather is truly fascinating!

Now, onto the shows that strike me as less than interesting.  If it hasn’t been inferred already, I do not like shows that do not offer me any opportunities to gain new knowledge, such as the shows focused on comedy, drama, and all other manner of genres. These shows typically do not hold my interest for long if I see them. As for the reason, I can’t provide a specific explanation, because I simply cannot express any interest in them; they just don’t click with me.

Television as a whole does not seem like a good form of entertainment, though it certainly succeeds in providing a wide array of interesting shows. The bad part comes from the fact that TV, and technology for that matter, serves as a distracter from physical entertainment, such as reading a book or writing a story. Why sit on a couch and stare at a glowing screen when you could be doing something much more entertaining? Quite frankly, thinking back to the days when television was all but alien to the general population, there were other forms of entertainment that certainly kept people satisfied. What can be found in television that cannot be found in, say, a good book? While a TV provides visual entertainment, a book provides an immersed entertainment, one where it feels like the reader is in the book itself, sharing the adventure with its characters.

In addition, modern television features an unsurprising and, to some, annoying array of advertisements, ranging from beauty products to insurance to whatever else an advertiser feels the need to advertise to the masses. While TV is certainly entertaining to the population, it is also a rich ground for advertisers to gain potential customers. Interjecting ads between the break times of a television show, though irritating to the viewers, provides a prime opportunity to reel in unsuspecting people into believing that their product or service is a must-have to better that unglorified life of theirs without their product.

Entertainment and advertisement, what else is there? Time, of course! Think of everything else one could do with that time spent staring at a screen with moving pictures? Drawing, reading, contemplating, doing something productive. What happened to those activities that were so prevalent without the need of a TV? A story could be written or a book read using the time spent to watch TV, providing people with a personal experience that TV cannot generally provide. A TV cannot whisk one away on a daring adventure, like a book can, and TV cannot generate lovable characters and a well-written plot, like writing can. What about everything else? What about exploring outside, taking a walk, or crafting something new? The time given to TV could be used for those, and for many other things as well, but yet, TV still eats up a portion of our lives which we could’ve used to do something exciting.

Although TV can be seen either as bad or good, it still remains a part of our lives today. For some, television is certainly an exciting and thrilling form of entertainment. For others, it is the quite the opposite. Nevertheless, there are always two sides to a coin.