Tuesday, August 12, 2008

Tele-Vision

Television has left a permanent mark in society. Whether it's how we arrange our schedules to watch our favorite program or whether it's how we act towards others. The use of writing and speech is used to make inferences on a person, such as their where they come from by noticing any accents. The use of television affects how we depict society.

The ability to chose what we watch by if it looks interesting or entertaining has affected how we see society. People become used to being entertained so much that they need to be entertained constantly. By making trying to make educational interesting through entertainment, we make the once useful information irrelevant and useless. Thus people begin to see school and learning boring and painstaking.

Americans have become so used to being entertained, that we begin to think that if something is not entertaining than it is not worth putting up with. For example, if people don't see a candidate good-looking or entertaining enough than we refuse to put up with them. Thus entertainment has become so addicting that people expect the world to be entertaining in their eyes. Have people fallen subject to being entertained constantly because that is what they want? Do we find ourselves blind to what we don't see entertaining?

Tomas Castro

1 comment:

Robert. said...

First off, though I myself love school and it's colorful characters, the implication that school was ever NOT seen as boring and painstaking seems rediculous. Though seperated by our technological advances, I assure you that teens couldn't have ever looked forward to a math test. It can't be new. At least I hope not, or our generation is truly pitiful.

But to attempt to answer your inquiry, yes, we're all firmly blinded by the powerful illumination of all things entertaining. BUT, to place such blame onto the entertainments themselves is absurd. I believe Postman himself addressed such claims, referring to the impact of a medium.

We're simply following a trend set by our forefathers and mothers centuries ago when jesters and poets roamed the roads. Mind you, poetry was seen as entertainment, as were epic tales and parables.

The fact that we adapted these epic tales and parables into a portable, visual medium that can be shared worldwide doesn't seem quite as sad as our acceptance of it. We've always loved entertainment.

I believe the beloved Bible even offers epic tales and captivating action/adventure stories, which, last time I attended a Hollywood blockbuster in theatres, is entertainment.

To imply that television has wronged us all, quite simply, isn't fair. It's instinctive to become bored by a dry speech, or a lazily written play. I wouldn't call it conditioning to say that humans find the visuals they're presented with as unknown spectacles to be further explored since even in our infancy we make such observations.

Sorry for the lengthy response. I chose your post to respond to in such length only because it interested me. I appreciated your observations.

That is all.