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Television is a telecommunication system for broadcasting and receiving moving pictures and sound over a distance. The term has come to refer to all the aspects of television programming and transmission as well. The word is derived from mixed Latin and Greek roots, meaning "far seeing" (Greek "tele," meaning far, and Latin "visus," meaning seeing). The origins of what would become today's television system are traced back as far as the discovery of the photoconductivity of the element selenium by Willoughby Smith in 1873, and the invention of a scanning disk by Paul Nipkow in 1884. All practical television systems use the fundamental idea of scanning an image to produce a time series signal representation. That representation is then transmitted to a device to reverse the scanning process. The final device, the television, relies on the human eye to integrate the result into a coherent image again.
While electromechanical techniques were developed prior to World War II, most notably by Charles Francis Jenkins and John Logie Baird, all-electronic television systems relied on the inventions of Philo Taylor Farnsworth, Vladimir Zworykin and others to produce a system suitable for mass distribution of television programming. Commercial broadcast programming, following years of experimental broadcasts seen only in a few specially-equipped homes, occurred in both the United States and the United Kingdom before World War II.
The first television broadcasts with a modern level of definition (240+ lines) were made in England in 1936. Television did not become commonplace in United States homes until the middle 1950s. While North American over-the-air broadcasting was originally free of direct marginal cost to the consumer (i.e., cost in excess of acquisition and upkeep of the hardware) and broadcasters were compensated primarily by receipt of advertising revenue, increasingly television consumers obtain their programming by subscription to cable television systems or direct-to-home satellite transmissions. In the United Kingdom, on the other hand, the owner of each television must pay a licence fee annually which is used to support the British Broadcasting Corporation.
Today the television is a quest in everyone’s home and it occupies not a trivial place in our life. The television has a great influence on all people but those mostly affected are children. The question I would like to answer here is whether watching the TV is good or bad for our offspring. When we concentrate on the advantages of watching television by children, first aspect that emerges is that the television is an educational tool. It is certain that it deserves the approval at this point. It helps to unfold children’s speech and it even teaches new languages. In addition it educates about good habits like politeness or sharing. It also introduces children to different cultures, customs and to the worlds of plants and animals.
Another strong and positive aspect of watching television by children is that it entertains them after school when they can watch their favorites programs. This in addition gives parents some peaceful time to do their usual home duties.
There are so many different views on this very popular form of entertainment, called TV and nobody can imagine life without this little home cinema. Television is unbelievably important source about what is happening on the world and the most popular pastime in many countries. But television has also its dark side which I am going to present.
Socially, TV has negative impact on children. Exposure to silly, nonsensical cartoons or brutal films which are full of violence is wasting their time to watch programs which do not teach them anything useful, rather push them to commit crimes.
The television is the world that has been pulled for our eyes and blinds us from the truth. TV provides us things, like significant political or cultural events, catastrophes, accidents, films, shows, sport programs but television chooses what the audience should watch and what we should know. We can see this watching other channels – public TV says completely different things that private TV.
We watch more violence – crimes, murders and other brutal scenes and shocking things. We became indifferent to these things, they became our normal life. Sometimes we cannot distinguish fiction from reality. Violence on television also has a very negative impact on children – they spend hours daily watching silly and violent cartoons.
From a psychological angle, television can be like a drug and those people, who are already addicted, forget about everything else. It becomes more interesting than their own life while turning off their brains. But the most amazing of all is that it seems to be a satisfaction with such passive enjoyment.
TV also has some biological angles, namely kids are easily influenced by commercials. Advertising encourages children to buy sweets, hamburgers that destroy their health. Apart from sitting in front of TV set, instead of going out to play some sports may cause spine’s diseases.
A lot of psychologists said that in many hoses TV is like the substitution mother or other protector. Children, who were educated on TV only, have emotion’s disorder trouble in concentration and they can’t express their own mind. The younger children who spend a lot of time on watching TV adapt harder in human’s reality. Psychologists decided that children shouldn’t watch TV longer than 90 minutes a day. A lot of children, who don’t get good standard from their parents often, apply the pattern which they met on TV. And sometimes the results after that kind of activity are very dangerous.
From my point of view, television exemplifies unlimited source of various news and knowledge showing aspects our lives. As we know, we can divide watching TV to situations when it is useful and helpful for us and unfortunately harmful. I can say that I usually derive beneficial information from this kind of mass media. Some programs really deserve our attention. The good point of TV is constant expansion of possibilities of watching TV. Within a year digital TV has appeared. It brought more interactive functions, so we are capable of interfering in action, doesn’t it sound good? Now you do not have to be a passive viewer – at last. It is clear that we have to pay for these extra options, but it should not be a hindrance. We ought not to forget that TV has an extraordinary level. For example : if you dream of a journey around the world to see many countries with a lot of attractions, I suggest taking your remote control and press an appropriate button. After this you move into exotic beauty. You can watch animals and the greatest monuments. It will take you whenever you want to go. But if you have enough money, throw away your TV – SET and take a plane to visit these beautiful places. Nothing can replace a natural spirit of real, fresh and full of incredible views world. Do not seat in front of television but go and learn about the planet on your own – you will not forget what you will see.