What Is The Theme Of The Worst Years Of Our Lives By Ehrenreich

The Worst Hard Times by Timothy Egan conveys the story of farmers who decided to prosper on the plains during the 1800s, in places such as Texas, Colorado, New Mexico, and Oklahoma. They decided to make living, and some stayed during the worst droughts in the United States in 1930s. High temperatures and dust storms destroyed the area, killing animals and humans. This competently book reveals the prosperity for many, later revealing the time of the skinny cows. The story is based on the testimonies of the survivors or through their diaries/journals and on historical research. The author describes the struggles of the nesters, in which Egan clearly blames these catastrophic events on the settler’s hubris.

Sachs explains that TV viewing brings little pleasure and close to being an addiction with little benefit and almost no happiness. This appeals to the readers emotionally since most can identify with some sort of addiction and its fallout. Most Americans have some sort of addiction, whether it is food or television and relate when the author uses this analogy to compare. Sachs goes on to claim that this addiction is leading to the decline in our social development since we spend less time face to face and more time in front of a TV or other media devices. Time that was once spent with family is now in front of a television screen or other media devices. This hold true as much now as it did in 2011 when this essay was written. Just this one statement can draw a reader further in since now almost all of us have a device that fits in our pockets that takes our attention away from other people. We end up looking down at our phones or tablets more than we look at other peoples faces. This, unfortunately, is becoming a sad truth in our society today. We would rather look into a world that is hard to distinguish what is real and what is made up instead of enjoying the real world. Sachs does state that there are other factors contributing to the decline of our social state in America

In “watching T.V Shortens Life Span, Study Finds” Jeannine Stein reveals the fact that how watching T.V every day is shortening our life span. Australian Heart Association conducted a study on 8800 men and women and they found that eighty five percent of them, who were watching T.V for one hour every day, were patient of obesity and diabetes. Jeannine says that watching T.V for one hour every day will raise the risk of dying from cardiovascular disease by 18%. Jeannine believes that we need to spend our time in some physical activities rather than sitting in front of T.V.

Time spent with their children talking and sharing is replaced by time spent in front of the television.

In conclusion, television wouldn't quite be the television we know today if it had a limited, narrowed genre of only realistic programs. Television is there to attract the viewers with what they want to see. They may want to watch the news, a reality show, a game show, or most recently many have tuned in to watch the Democratic Presidential Debate. Barbara's idea of television is that without reality or things people can do in real life, boredom is ensured to happen. Despite her claim, television continues to play a big part in not only American culture, but multiple cultures around the

In today’s society, people often choose to watch T.V. over other activities. They read less, spend less time outside, and spend less time interacting with their family and friends. People often eat their meals while watching T.V. One research study done by The National Endowment for the Arts and reported in Information Please Database showed some alarming trends: People age 15-24 spend 1hour and 57 minutes each weekday watching T.V., people age 35-44 spend 1 hour and 53 minutes each weekday watching T.V., and people age 55-64 spend 2 hours and 35 minutes each weekday watching T.V. All of these age groups spent even more time viewing T.V. on the weekends than they did during the week. This study shows that people spend a great deal of time “vegetating” in front of a T.V. screen rather than interacting with others or using their minds to think.

The thing about this image is that it is becoming all too real. Even today, we have the older generation telling us stories of when they didn’t have cellphones, back-seat TV monitors, and that they always played outside from dusk until dawn. This helps see how fast technology is progressing, and there will be a time when kids will no longer look out the window on road trips and the separation of man and nature is fast approaching. He also asks the rhetorical questions “Why do so many Americans … worth watching” (ln 43-47). The first question makes “so many Americans” (ln 43) hypocritical of not wanting to watch a lot of TV, but yet they make “so many opportunities to watch it” (ln 45). The second question strengthens his argument of not separating the ties of man and nature by igniting a feeling in the reader that that statement is all too

In the essay "The Worst Years of Our Lives", Barbara Ehrenreich claims that television is having a negative impact on its viewers and turning them into a type of root vegetable, potatoes. Ehrenreich claims that television is suppose to show what people do everyday, but it does show what people do most on a daily basis, which is watching television. She does not take into consideration that most people have self-control and knows how to balance work and rest time. Also, watching television just to watch people watching television doesn't make much sense. People keep watching television to have a few minutes to themselves where they are able to drift away from reality and step into a world that they are not familiar with to relax.

In both Neil Postman’s Amusing Ourselves to Death, written in 1985, and Andrew Perlot’s article “The Negative Effects of Television” from the blog Raw Food Health, share the views on the negative impacts of television on society. While Perlot believes people should get rid of television completely, Postman warns his audience to take caution as television makes its way into our daily lives. Due to their different text types, they do not share a common audience. Perlot is writing to young adults with an adequate source of income and are already interested in taking self-care. Postman is writing to educated people and those are well versed in the works of Huxley and Orwell.

Citizens in the United States have the same general behavior as those in Ray Bradbury’s novel, Fahrenheit 451. This novel features a world where cars are fast, music is loud, and watching television is the main way to spend free time. People rarely make time for each other, rarely imagine and form their own opinions, and rarely take the time to stop and smell the roses. Ever since the television came out, it has made a huge impact on how information has been passed around. It seems that the television has become abused with the movies, television series, and video games whose importance seems to outweigh that of getting out to spend time with friends and family, exploring and trying new things. “According to the A.C. Nielsen Co., the average American watches more than 4 hours of TV each day” (Herr). Considering there isn’t much time in the day after work and sleep, that’s a long time to be sitting doing almost nothing. In Fahrenheit 451, the civilians are consumed in

There’s four main seasons that occur throughout the year. I’ve always loved the saying “like the seasons we change.” When I hear this saying I like to think of a tree; how it can go from being a little sprout, to small tree with only branches, to being so full of life with colors and leaves everywhere. This tree withstands the scorching hot summers, the brutal cold winters and all of what is in between. This tree stands strong and continues to grow and mature through it all. I would compare myself to this tree as I have grown, and matured as well. Throughout my four years of high school I’ve changed just like the seasons.

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.

It would be hard to imagine a world where the value of human life has been

Today, mostly everyone has a television at home. Who doesn't? Yet, had we considered what effects television does to us when we spend hours watching it for a long while? Ehrenreich assertion of television are accurate because people spent their time sitting in the couch being slothful, doing nothing interesting, and spending their whole time watching tv.

People very often debate whether technology is good or bad. Many people believe that technology can only cause harm to their lives and society, while many others strongly defend the technologies which have made their lives much more leisurely and enriching than it could have been several hundred years ago. In my opinion, both of these views are correct to an extent, but I also believe that what should be examined is not whether technology in its self is good or bad, but rather how we as humans use it.For decades now, television has been accused of contributing to the dissolution of the American family and the destruction of the minds of those who watch it. However, although the TV has been involved in this, the problem roots not with