Sunday, September 9, 2007
#2: Screen Time in Your Life
Marie Winn in her essay "TV: The Plug-In Drug" talks about the negative effects of TV, especially on children. Consider these questions: What is your response to Winn's analysis? What part does "screen time" (TV, computers, video games, etc.) play in your life? Does it shape how you interact with people? Would you rather email or IM someone than talk with them face-to-face? Are the effects mostly positive or mostly negative, do you think? [You don't have to answer all these--Just pick the ones you find most relevant.]
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9 comments:
In my opinion, Marie Winn’s analysis of TV is on target. However, TV is one of those things in life that I think we all share a love-hate relationship with. That is, most everyone enjoys watching TV every once in a while, if only for the news or weather updates, but it can interfere with everyday life if abused--everything in moderation. My screen time is probably excessive; but the shows I watch the most are educational. I like the History channel and the Discovery channel, and I usually watch them while I am doing something constructive around the house. I don’t think TV negatively impacts my life.
This article was very good, but it was also very biased, she is obviously a family oriented person, but what she hasn't thought about is the children that don't have a happy family. In many ways t.v. offers them a way to escape the things that are going on around them. Personally, I hardly ever watch t.v. and only get on the computer when I have homework. So, I don't think that I am effected much by screen time.
I think Winn makes some very relevant points in her essay. She definitely is very one-sided in her essay, but I believe going to that extreme helped her make a point. Screen time doesn’t take a very large part of my life, I only get on the computer to do homework and email people who live far away. My family only enjoys watching track and soccer on TV, but we have a very limited number of channels, so we don’t watch TV that often. I think watching some TV can(it depends on the shows) be beneficial. However, when people have TV’s all over the house it has very negative affects because instead of reading a book or talking while eating, doing chores, or doing homework they simple let their brains melt while watching TV.
Winn's essay brings up very important points, but when a person writes an essay using statistics, only the percentage of people who relate to the author's topic are displayed. My family and I are definitely categorized in the other part of the statistics. Growing up, there was absolutely always a TV on at all times. Whether someone was sleeping in front of it, doing homework, reading, etc., the TV was always on. All four of my family members have TVs in their rooms along with multiple other TVs in other rooms. However, I have great friends who I hang out with (eye contact and all), make straight A's, manage to have good conversation with my parents. I suppose not everyone becomes addicted to "The Plug-in Drug."
If given the choice of talking to people face-to-face or emailing them, I would prefer talking to emailing. This is because I know that if I'm talking to people than I am spending time with them. It makes it more personal than sending a five minute email. In emails a word can only mean one thing. Yet, when talking a word can mean a lot of different things just by the tone or manner in which it was said. Personally I think that parents should not only monitor the amount of TV watched but also the content. Content can cause TV to have a negative or positive effect.
Personally I think of some of the points that Winn made were solid but it is obviously biased towards a certain type of family life. Personally I spend have a lot of "screen time" but I don't feel it really effects the rest of my life. I simply use it for entertainment, if I need to doing anything else (homework etc), it doesn't get in the way.
I completely agree with Marie Winn's analysis on tv. Instead of watching five hours of tv a day, kids should be outside interacting with other kids or doing something productive. I think it's sad that all kids want to do is watch tv all their parents want them to do is spend quality family time. If parents would only allow their kids to watch a certain amount of tv then I dont think it would be such a big problem
I would like to say that TV is not a very big part of my life. But I do spend some time out of my days in front of the tv and computer. Marie Winn's analysis is reasonable but the time I spend in front of the TV or computer does not affect my social life or how I treat other people. I enjoy being with my friends and girlfriend a whole lot more than lounging around in front of a screen. I cherish those times that I get to spend with the people that I love. Nothing changes that, especially not a screen.
I believe that tv is not a bad thing, but it also is not a good thing. I personally don't have enough time to watch 5 hours of tv. Kids that do have that time do need to find extracurricular activities to use up that time. but an hour or two is not a bad thing to me.
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