by Kurt Mckelvey

Created on: September 23, 2009   Last Updated: September 27, 2009

I may have been televisionized, as my behavior and my mindset have been altered by the influence of television. My brothers and younger sister are no exception; they watch television every day for at least an hour or two. I remember when my siblings were around five, I would come home from school and they would have learned some sort of expression or catch phrase that nobody in the family says, and I would think to myself that they must have picked up that phrase from television. When I was younger, if I saw something on television that I liked I would also try to emulate it. I suppose mimicking what we see is how we learn, but television often shows many things which are jejune, irrelevant, or negative.

When I watch television, I am generally very critical of whatever I am watching. I believe that whoever is putting on the content that I am viewing is showing it to me for a reason, and I can only guess as to what I think that reason might be by perhaps making inferences from the slant of discussion on the show. I can never know for certain why I'm being told the things that I am told, or even whether or not it is true. It reminds me of the Ministry of Truth from the book 1984 by George Orwell. I see many parallels in that book to society today.

As I type this essay, my baby nephew sits in a play-pen in the living room. The Disney Channel is on and some quirky kids show playing. My nephew Jacob is asleep now, but was just up and watching it a moment ago. I can only imagine the many ways that the content of television could be shaping his mind. I'm sure the television is giving him some sort of understanding of language and context, but also ideas on likes and dislikes, what is good and bad, what society is and how we proceed in it. We are constantly being bombarded by so many different perspectives and ideologies and modes of thinking when we watch television. All of these ideas are perceived by the viewer on a conscious or subconscious level and they have an effect on the mind, whether subtle or pervasive.

I remember watching Nickelodeon at an early age, the shows interested me and I grew up with that channel. About the time that I outgrew the kid shows on Nickelodeon, they came out with a new lineup of shows for older kids. As I grew up I would also watch MTV, and they always played music videos, 24 hours a day. MTV did this up until I had reached the age where I stopped watching nickelodeon primarily and started watching MTV. Once my generation was MTV's

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