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Though many of us in our society cannot begin to imagine going even a week without watching any TV, it can have quite a number of positive impacts on our life. There are three major areas of our lives that have drastically been effected by television: our health, our minds, and our families.

Firstly, our health. All we hear people talk about these days is how the child obesity problem is more serious now than ever. Kids watching hours upon hours of television each day. This is all time that, a couple of generations ago, would be spent outside entertaining themselves with sports or other outdoor activities. Ever as adults, we tend to rather curl up and watch TV and munch on some chips instead of go for a walk or ride our bikes. As a result, cardiovascular disease is more common than at any other point in human history. It's unreal... the number of heart attacks is increasing, and the age at which these attacks occur is decreasing.

Secondly, one that many people overlook, our minds are negatively effected by television. Some would argue and say that by watching TV, we learn about lots of things we otherwise wouldn't have been exposed to, and it helps us keep up to date on world issues. This is true. TV can, in fact, help with expanded our general knowledge. But in terms of increasing our intellect or IQ (our ability to learn and think abstractly), television is entirely bad. When compared to reading a novel, watching television fires significantly less neurons and uses an extremely smaller percentage of our brain's capacity. If we were reading a book, our mind would be at work creating all the imagery and action itself, instead of letting a television show it to us. Also, the different-word-count is drastically higher in a book when compared to television. This means that in a certain amount of time spent reading, we would encounter a higher number of different words than if we spent that same amount of time watching television. This causes our vocabulary to increase at a rate that is incomparable to that of television. As far as your brain in concerned, television really holds you back.

Finally, our family lives are negatively effected by television. This is not always the case, but far too commonly we hear of families who never eat meals together because they're all spread across the house watching different shows on different TVs. Or even if they're sitting together eating at the same table, there is no conversation happening because they're all watching TV together. Although it's an activity that the family is taking part in together, it involves no family interaction, and therefore can break down communication between the members. If a family gets used to being around each other without talking to one another, it can become awkward and uncomfortable if someone tries to talk about something personal. This can have terribly outcomes for young adults and teen agers who are often in desperate need of advice and guidance from their parents. Watching too much TV can even lead to neglect of your spouse or children.

To close, I want to remind you that TV is not just a big box of pure evil. There are certainly some good, relaxing, stress-relieving aspects to it when used appropriately and in small doses. But by a huge margin, I would predict that all of us would live happier, healthier lives if we did without TV for a while.

Learn more about this author, Brad Norman.
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