Why You Shouldn't Watch TV

Television is indeed a tempting habit. So much entertainment and so interesting at times. It's so fun sometimes! The news, sports, game shows, this-and-that for sale, movies, documentaries, history, political debates, and much much more. But I personally think television is just a waste of time overall, and is bad for you. It can turn you into a vegetable just staring dumbly at the screen, and some learned and educated people have found out that old people who watch a lot of TV get Alzheimers faster and hence die younger.

Ironically, on the early morning news today they spoke of the oldest living woman passing away at 115 years of age. Her claim as to why she lived that long? She said it's because she kept learning as much as she can. It was also stressed that being physically active helps. Obviously if you're glued to your couch in front of a movie with a bag of chips you're not moving much.

So I plan to live without the telly if I am ever over 50 years of age. If something is really such a big deal on the news I'll read the papers or ask a friend to bend my ear for a while. The way I will enforce this abstinence is to instead hopefully do more productive activities. They say when you're old you should play puzzle games and such. For entertainment I'll try to play chess once or twice a week, read something every day, work out a little, and hopefully volunteer in carpentry. So it's not that I'll be deprived, rather I'll hopefully be making a better choice.

My dad and mom are watching TV right now. The news. Like it's really so important. It's all carefully packaged, highly-processed, and highly-sprinkled junk food for the mind. Always the same old delivery. Always focusing on people getting killed somewhere. A big explosion over in India - it's terrible, of course. But why do we need to know all the gory details? And why the repetition - OK, so we know this tragedy happened, OK. Can you tell it to me again, just so I make sure?

I find some things about the news creepy. It's just unnerving how all the major news outlets copy each other when it comes to content. Why do they have to be like parrots?

Another issue I have is the affected air of intellectualism I see from the news anchors. In reality, these people are actors. Yet they act like they know so much. If I transcribed all that these people said and read it to myself I am sure I would feel like I'm reading some 9th grader writing. It might be a smart and grammatically correct paper, but it's still 9th grade writing. You read it and you're like - "yeah, OK, could you be anymore general and vague about things?"

There's another incredibly annoying and disturbing thing about television shows on the main networks, I mean the public television that's free(cable might be exempt in some shows). You're forced to watch a bunch of advertisements about medical drugs, insurance companies, and other lame stuff. When watching the "news" you actually spend at least one-third the time watching commercials.

If I spent 30 minutes straight online browsing the news headlines and reading what interests me, not only would I see more news, I would learn more. I wouldn't be held hostage for 5 minutes straight as commercials get jammed down my retinas.

So if possible I will live without TV, but it will depend on my future spouse's preference. I will try to avoid it simply because it's bad for children. They have conducted many studies that show that kids who watch a lot of TV have a bigger chance of getting educational problems later on.

So TV, to me is just not healthy. I will swear not to watch any more at least until I graduate, since it's such a drain on time. But I have a feeling I might at least sneak a glance if my favorite basketball team makes it to the NBA finals.