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How Television Affects
You
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Have you ever watched yourself watching
television? What happens? There are two things
one can do – directly perceive the images and the sounds first
and thereby approach the television from oneself; and watch the content
and thereby approach yourself from the television.
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Most of us approach the television from the
latter angle and thus get completely lost in it – we let the television
invade our minds, without first perceiving the kinds of images that are
being shown. If one approaches the form before the content, one will
simply find most of the images and sounds shown on the television to be
repulsive and offensive to the senses. It is because we do not directly
see, because we do not understand this first impression, that we get lost
in the content and then the good and bad in the TV depends on our
conclusions, ideas and likes or dislikes.
Television as it exists now is nothing but a marketing tool for
making money by offending one’s senses by displaying all kinds of rubbish
images and by invading the feeble and impressionable human mind. One
might’ve experienced a certain heaviness in the brain during or after
watching television for a short duration of time. Many times, the
residue of the images and sounds displayed remains in the brain. It is
because we think it is harmless and let it work on us that more and more
new ways of using it to deteriorate the mind are being invented. A mind
that is in a habit of watching television regularly, is exposed to it for
many years, has more or less lost some of its natural faculties. Moreover,
it must also affect the brain cells, perhaps damaging some and killing
some. This is only the direct effect of television, not to forget the
image making process that starts in the mind – the mind becomes occupied
with images and ideas rather than with facts. This is a serious threat
facing humankind, especially young brains.
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One watches television, listens to music, reads, plays video games, etc.,
because the mind has simply become addicted to these artificial
stimulations, to be kept occupied with some thing or the other all the
time. It seriously alters the mind’s capacity to be free of illusions and
to see things as they are. It fills the mind with all kinds of unnecessary
images and sounds – one can see this for oneself when all kinds of
thoughts and sounds just pop up in one’s head. This makes the mind
mechanical, insensitive and incapable of direct perception of things. It
also affects one’s physical vision, fatigues the mind and makes one lazy.
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Now, it is a crisis situation since the people who make the media their
profession become engaged in wielding its power shamelessly. One can
see this in the programs that are aired on television; most of them are
far away from the basic logic of things. This shows how ignorant and
stupid these people are who are not only living their lives amidst all
this but are also imposing the same on almost everybody. Their minds have
already deteriorated and they project their deterioration and
senselessness onto the masses, who are impressionable and after a time
start believing in the senseless as the real in a most natural way. This
has been the lot of mankind for the last 20 years or so. However, the
speed at which this is occurring is increasing, and the younger generation
which is exposed to it shall have to bear the brunt of it. The whole human
consciousness is now so filled with content of all kinds that it has
become ever more difficult for people to be free of all this accumulation
and live a sane and healthy life.
Contributed By :
The above extract has been taken from the
short story, Television and Conditioning, featured in the book - To
Think or Not to Think and Other Stories, by Ashutosh Ghildiyal
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