Barbara Ehrenreich's The Worst Years Of Our Lives

“Television has changed the American child from an irresistable force to an immovable object.” (Peter). There was a time when all children wanted to do was to run, play, explore, and be adventurous. As time evolved, children have found more interest in television. Statistics show that a child spends 900 hours per year in school,and they spend 1,200 hours per year watching television. When asked to choose between watching T.V. and spending time with their families fifty-four percent of four to six year olds voted they would prefer to watch television. Television has changed the mindset of children over the years it has been proven that the more programs they watch, the more harmful it is to their brain development. T.V.

Television holds an important part in most of our lives. From a young age, we spend countless hours sitting in front of a television set. Every year there are new shows created, and our favorite shows are renewed for another season. There are numerous programs to choose from. Television broadcasts are free, and there are also paid options for more diverse programming. We are fortunate enough to be able to spend on average a third of our leisure time watching television all from the comfort of our homes. Given the incredible reach that television has on our lives, we can say that television has a significant impact on our lives.

What can be the effect of television on people’s lives? People living in these days are addicted to watching TV. However, it is true that watching too much television makes people lose touch with the reality of their lives; they start to see the TV “world” as the real world instead of the world they are living in. This situation divides their loyalties, and all of this is controlled by the people who control the media. Many examples exist in the world that we live and in the world of Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury. For example, the way the media lies people proves that people are not in the “real” world when they are watching TV and being taught to what had been told to them. Or, people are hooked on television so much that they neglect and

     What role does television play in society? For decades we have seen many parts of our world rapidly going through changes in technology. Today’s society has been transformed by means of communication and the available information through mass media. Most Americans rely on television for news, sports, and entertainment. Television is just one of the many examples of how technology has changed our lives. Since the invention of the television in the early 1900’s, it has played a very important role in our lives. Having a television set in the home has become very essential in today’s society. We depend on it to entertain us with its sitcoms and to inform us about current world issues. The

Barbara Ehrenreich expresses her utter distaste for television in The Worst Years of Our Lives based in the 1980’s. Ehrenreich writes numerous assertions in regard to television’s unrealistic portrayal of every day life. She raises a valid argument when she points out that TV watchers will never see the commonplace facets of human life depicted on their TV screen. Instead, they watch shows filled with fake people, plastic smiles, ungenuine conversations, and unrealistic tasks all combined into a program that epitomizes the way in which we don’t live. Television distracts people from actually living their lives so instead they live vicariously through TV shows, wasting their lives away.

According to Barbara Ehrenreich in The Worst Years of Our Lives, she discusses that television was consuming much of many of the individuals in the 80’s time. Television in the 80’s became a very addictive drug which produced a different reality. The amount of television used should be kept to a minimum and not be exceeded to where you would always need more.

Technology throughout the past 30-40 years has become more advanced and accessible than ever. The television specifically has developed extremely since its beginning. What started off as a single camera caption, has developed into a full fledge worldwide availability. Within the United States, the TV is a normal everyday object common in households, hotels, schools, and even restaurants. There are approximately 118.4 million household in the United States that own a television set ( The Number of TV Households in the United States from season 2000-2001 to season 2016-2017 (in millions)).However, the increased amount of time spent watching TV has had a tremendous impact on people, especially kids. The differences in generations throughout the development of the TV has led to many questions, all revolving around whether or not the televisions has had a good or negative impact pertaining to children. Time spent watching television affects the brain, ability to learn, and skill levels in different areas (source. In the book “Last Child in The Woods,” Richard Louv discusses how children in the 1940’s would watch out the window at the scenery and have conversations, while children now sit and watch a movie on a flip-down video screen without knowledge to the outside world (Louv 16-17).

Television is an object that has shaped American lives for many years. Television has a positive effect on American families. Television is one of the multifarious items that influences human lives heavily nowadays. Watching television is an advantage as it provides a lot. For instance, television is educational. Television is also entertaining. Lastly, television is a necessary object for American families as it provides shows and aspects that families rely on laboriously to survive.

TV is a constant presence in most Americans' lives. With all of its shows that have highly entertaining style, it gets many people's attention for several hours each day. Television helps people to develop values and know about the world around them. Moreover it influences viewers' attitudes and beliefs about themselves, as well as about people from other social and cultural backgrounds. TV is the biggest element that can influence on U.S. culture because of the news reports, the TV shows, and the commercials that on television screen.

Can you ever find some things for entertainment, information and communication all at once other than television ?. The answer more likely is no. As the matter of fact, researcher show that ninety nine percentage of household that possesses at least one television. Additionally the average of youth and adult spend time watch television is more than one thousand hour per year. These number is higher than everyone expect. With those statistic show above, its prove that television is one of the most important material to human life in both sociology and psychology. Since the television was developed, human life was changed enormously. In brief, without television, human life would take a slow process in development

The author of “The Trouble with Television,” Robert MacNeil, states that television can get addictive. The article says that you will AT LEAST watch 20,000 hours of television to the age of 30. The author also states that “the trouble with television is that it discourages concentration.” He is trying to persuade the reader that television is a waste of time. MacNeil clearly believes that television is the most disruptive invention. And he’s trying to encourage us to try to find something more productive than just sitting and watching TV.

The second reason why I believe television is a force of good in American society is for the reason that a lot of us are hooked on to be aware of what’s going on within the country and around the world. If we don’t pay attention to the news then we are not notified of what’s going on whether it’s about our community, we won’t know any new laws or modified laws, what’s going on with stock market, status on economy, and any information about new diseases or cures of disease. In the old days, we would get our source from the newspaper, since technology has rapidly evolved we now also get our source television, internet, and radio. More than eighty percent of adults follow the news multiple times in a week and about fifty seven percent go thru

“TV has become a significant part of American life, with 98% percent of Americans homes having at least one set and with the average set turned on six hours each day” John E. O’Connor (xiv). Within 15 years of production, about 83 million American homes had at least one television set. TV is such an essential part of our everyday lives, that it would be hard to imagine life without it. Television is an influential medium that produces many pop-culture figures, and trends. The development, iconic people, and legendary programs all have made television’s legacy extraordinary, and quintessential part of American culture.

Television has been a big part of many American’s lives since its invention, and is no different in mines. Ever since I was a child, I was always waiting to watch my favorite shows during Saturday mornings. However, my television viewing habits, along with many other Americans, have tremendously changed over the past decade. Due to advances in technology, television has evolved into many different forms. This change has caused television to evolve overtime that has made television more accessible, provide a higher variety of options, and becoming a less sociable activity as a result.

Television is regarded as one of the greatest inventions in the twentieth century. It is a special social and cultural phenomenon of using TV as the medium to interact and exchange information between an individual to the world. TV is the superior modern mass media. It helps to break down certain social barriers by educating the populace. Some people think it is even better than newspaper, magazines and radios because it appears in both sound and vision. People can instantly see real live scenarios and real pictures with wide and comprehensive choices of TV shows.