I know that we live in an age of 24 hour media entertainment. There was a time when television stations cut off at night. Nowadays television and the other various media outlets are just a finger tip away. We are inundated with electronic visual and audio stimulus all the waking moments of our lives. Speaking of our waking moments, they are all spent in front of a television or a computer screen. As a matter of fact, binge watching is the new trend. To sit and watch movies and TV programs hours at a time is a new normal.
To prove this point, in the 1970's the average man and women watch television just over 6 hours a day (According to Goggle).
Today it is far worst. According to an article from The Atlantic,
"Americans still watch an absolutely astounding amount of traditional television. In fact, television viewing didn’t peak until 2009-2010, when the average American household watched 8 hours and 55 minutes of TV per day. And the ’00s saw the greatest growth in TV viewing time of any decade since Nielsen began keeping track in 1949-1950: Americans watched 1 hour and 23 minutes more television at the end of the decade than at the beginning. Run the numbers and you’ll find that 32 percent of the increase in viewing time from the birth of television to its peak occurred in the first years of the 21st century." The Atlantic Alexis C. Madrigalmay May 30, 2018
This article is only including traditional TV. This does not include things such as Netflix, Disney, and other such streaming networks.
According to Google, the average person will spend more than 78,000 hours in front of the television over their lifetime, a new study says. Researchers determined that viewers watch an average 3,639 movies and 31,507 episodes of television, amounting to staggering 78,705 hours according to findings released by OnePoll on Monday.Dec 3, 2019.
Watching TV programs has become a way of life. I would like to define the words Television program.
program - noun
a plan of action to accomplish a specified end:
Now I would like to define the prefix Tele-.
tele-combining form
at or over a distance; by means of or via telephone or television
Lastly I would like to define the word vision.
vision - noun
the act or power of sensing with the eyes; sight. an experience in which a personage, thing, or event appears vividly or credibly to the mind, although not actually present,
So the real definition of Television is: To watch something transmitted from a distance, that appears credible to the mind, that has a specific unknown purpose.
Be careful of watching too much television. Humans were not designed by nature to watch TV. It is a form of art that is intimating reality (I have heard that somewhere before). Sadly we watch so much television that reality (us), now imitates art. This is not humanistic. This goes against all laws of nature.
Remember the root meaning of entertainment is to distract.
What is TV distracting us from? Knowing that we by God's design are to create our own reality.
Television in and of itself is not a negative. But, for the vast majority, what we are watching is no good, and is not in our best interest.
Television paints a picture for us. Better said, paints a picture in us. We should not be a canvas to be painted on. We should be the artist.
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