Television; cerebral stimulation via concepts, imagery and sound or opiate of the masses?

Answer 1

A WAAHHH!?

Answer 2

Give humanity a marvelous invention and folks immediately start talking about its horrible effects. We just aren't happy until we are weighing the pros and cons of anything that has made our lives better. Remember, even Coke machines that give you that ice cold drink can stubbornly keep your money or fall over on you.

Television is what you make it. If you want mental stimulation, you can watch the Discovery Channel, Animal Planet or public television with its marvelous presentations of classical entertainment and deep discussions of historical events, and learn a few things. If its relaxation you need, turn on a Sitcom or a Reality Show and find a chuckle now and then.

Sometimes you can find both. David Kelley writes Boston Legal, a ridiculous satirical program about a law firm, yet he tucks in a stimulating moral or political lesson in just about every show.

Television is wonderful. I should know. I grew up without it. When it arrived, it was magical. It still is. And now we have the Internet. Will wonders never cease!

Answer 3

Depends on the motive of the viewer.

There are educations shows and such that can explain a concept best with imagery and sound but there is also pop culture plastered all over the greater amount of channels.

Answer 4

Dependant on what it is used for, it can be either.
Examples:

-thought-provoking documentaries (such as The Sky At Night, for example), news bulletins, high-brow shows will result in cerebral stimulation.

-on the other hand, soap operas (Eastenders, Coronation Street et al) rarely result in a response other than a vegatative state of mind.

It's a case of whom the channel directors want to attract as clientele, and what the channel bosses (or government, in some countries) want to show.

Answer 5

I think most television programing is an opiate. Think about it, what does all that TV watching amount to? Most of it is censored, and delivered to the viewer in a specific manner. I hate watching TV mainly because of the advertisements

Answer 6

You can electrically stimulate a dead frog and make it jump. Television numbs you into a vegetative state. Too much and you start to think its real. So I'm going with the opiate.

Answer 7

Its entertainment. If the ancient Greeks (who developed the stage play) had had the technology I have no doubts films and television would have been used.
Remember also, television was developed as a means for advertising. But they quickly realized nobody was going to sit and just watch commericials all day, so programing was slipped inbetween them.

Answer 8

It is all in one's perception.Strangely, sometimes even opiates can act as stimulants,
and sometimes too much of a stimulant can dull one's senses and act as opiates.

Answer 9

TV is an escape for many, a learning experience for others, it all depends on your mind set and the attitude you approach it with like anything else. To me violent programs is just negative energy, yet dramas on Hallmark for example can teach us about people, by way of telling us a story of hard times others have gone through.

But alas, to many TV is the E of mindless entertainment and they let everything rain down on them like rain outside, and nothing is taken in.

Answer 10

an interesting corollary:
Marx said, "religion's the opiate of the masses":
so if TV the present-day Opiate [according to Question] then, ergo, TV America's present-day Religion? [a syllogism]
In this sense TV 'preaches' materialism & commercialism [material things & our drive to acquire them].
(&: Holistic ~ et al -- exc.-me, no need to get into pedantic drivel.)
And before we get into TV-bashing -- isn't Internet similar in many ways? -- more 'intelligent' system [Interactive] 'tis true -- but same potentially-addictive properties, & in its values & advertizing a similar philosophy?

Answer 11

Television is like any tool; it can be used for good or for bad. A hammer can be used to build a home to protect a family or to bash in the head of another human being. Do we throw out all hammers because one person used it to kill another?