From an early age television plays a large part in our lives, first watching children’s programmes and then as we get older, sports, films and news programmes. Televisions are more affordable now than ever and people often have second and third televisions in bedrooms and kitchens.
TV addiction is very, very real. More so than smoking, more so than drugs, and more so than alchohol. It is more insidious than any of these addictions because an entire industry and institution has been built around television entertainment. TV addiction is uncontrollable. I’m certain that it is the downfall of most marriages and the reason why half of this country is unemployed, overweight, lazy, and has attention deficit disorder.
A TV addict is a person who depends psychologically on watching television, it’s similar to pathological gambling.
A drug addict is person who depends not only psychologically but also physically on using drugs.
We can consider that TV addicts are better than drug addicts because people depending on drug addiction try at any price to get drugs, they can kill, thieve not thinking about the results. But sometimes watching television can be the reason for all of these. George Mikes once said, TV teaches us “how to kill, to rob, to shoot and to poison.” We watch hits where people are killed before our very eyes. It dulls our sensitivity and when we learn about one more tragedy or catastrophe, we perceive it as something quite natural, just like an everyday affair. It may be the reason not only for taking drugs but fot drinking and smoking. One man said «I believe that the reason I smoke and drink every day and my wife is overweight is because we watched TV every day for the last four years».
That’s why I think that taking drugs and watching TV are in some degree correlate with each other. And I can’t say what is really better TV addiction or drug addiction because the first one can entail not only the second one but also other addictions.
