Week 27: No TV -- Hancock
TV is an Insidious influence
By Samuel Hancock
Lake Region Union High School, Grade 12
One thing that I absolutely do not miss is television.
I haven't watch much TV -- about 30 minutes to an hour a week -- for the past five years. Since I have stopped watching it, I feel I have became a much different person. Sure, it is true that I have matured and changed over the last five years of my teenage life, but I sincerely feel that blocking the information that comes through the TV has changed me for the better. It has helped me to think for myself and develop my own views and opinions on things.
Some might call me radical, but I see TV as little more than pop culture brainwashing or a way for the government to mold the public’s thinking into conformity. Television plays with people’s minds so subtly that people do not even notice it. TV is carefree and makes people feel good, as if life is without its problems. The commercials are filled with smiling people, bright colors, and the many bright, catchy jingles of the major scale. TV shows are filled with happy, young, beautiful, proud Americans.
To me it seems like mental morale conditioning. It is as if they are trying to make you feel like everything is OK when it’s
really not - a mass distraction from the mediocrity of the system. U.S. television promotes conformity to our country’s agenda. Think about how often you see video footage on
television of a U.S. soldier, or perhaps even an enemy soldier, with his brains blown all over the ground from an M-16 round, or, perhaps, blown into pieces by a 50-caliber shot, or a soldier
suffering from post traumatic stress because he had to frantically stuff his best friends intestines back into his body because his gut was sliced open by shrapnel, or the sight of a man’s head melting off his shoulders because of a magnesium grenade.
Now think about all the times you see people shooting other people without even a trace of blood or brain matter. They make war look so fun on TV by stripping it of reality, just like they do with everything else. Then they make it seem even more fun by making video games out of it. Perhaps if your video game
console pulled out a gun and shot you or your friend in the head when you lost, it would not be so popular.
Carelessly watching countless hours of TV is like giving strangers access to your head so they can subtly control your thinking. There are many pieces of evidence to my theories, and they go as far back as World War II, where patriotism was encouraged through propaganda. ‘Looney Tunes’ cartoons, where the main characters are waging war against real enemy nations of the United States is one example.
Another good example is the many marketing tactics used on TV, successfully trying to persuade you to buy things that you don’t need. Even in movies and literature the effects it has on your brain is strong. It can make you cry, laugh, scream, feel scared
or happy. The repetition of television can even burn things into your mind that you will remember for the rest of your life.
For instance, my twenty five year old friend just the other day started singing the theme song to a television show he watched when he was 8 years old. This reminded me of an interview with one of the Hitler Youth I saw a few years back where the man in his eighties could still recite the NAZI anthems which he was indoctrinated with as a child.
I personally do not like the idea of giving this kind of power over my psyche to just anyone. To me it is as if the television is thinking for everyone who spends an excessive amount
of time watching it. I prefer to think for myself and develop my own perspectives. Not to say knowing other peoples perspectives and thoughts is bad in anyway, in fact it is good. But when
one is so immersed in the philosophies of TV to the point that it is all they know, then they are just letting another biased mind think for them. Now we have a generation of cookie cutter
followers who cannot make their own decisions. They are told what to wear, what music to listen to, what to believe in, who to love and who to hate instead of deciding for themselves.
Perhaps this is good for the well being of our country, maybe it is to dangerous to let people think for themselves. All I know for sure is that I will continue to think for myself, and I will not indulge in such a vice as TV to the point where I let it have such great power over my mind that it starts thinking for me any time soon.
Good essay
This is a strong essay. It lays out a clear point of view and doesn't waver. It is convincing. The writing is strong.
Here are a couple of thoughts on how to improve a piece like this...First, the graphic images you present of what one does NOT see on TV could be clearer; what is the underlying point you are trying to make? And how does this fit into that larger point?
Second, towards the end you start making some generalities. I can take a little bit of that, as a reader, but not too much. Often, as wrtiers, we resort to generalities or blanket statements to try to make our point more emphatically. But the opposite proves true; by making generalities we undercut our credibility. We can make our point much stronger if we do NOT use generalities or, even, if we qualify our statements; we can also make our point strong if we use an individual example, or statistics.
For instance: "Now we have a generation of cookie cutter followers who cannot make their own decisions." As a reader I KNOW that is not true; I know many of your generation who are independent thinkers and who can make their own decisions. Because of that knowledge, I, as a reader, am not persuaded by your statement and, in fact, I don't believe it..... So if you instead wrote that you worry that TV has too much influence on young people's decisions, that it is directing them to make choices they might not otherwise make -- all more qualifying statements -- then I, as a reader, would find what you are saying more believable.
Anyway, this is a very good effort and I'm glad you shared it with us.
gg