How much time do you spend daily “glued to the tube”? Probably too much. Television can be fun, interesting, and sometimes even educational; nevertheless, it is very harmful to our minds and bodies.

First of all, Americans rarely choose good books over television. According to the A.C. Nielsen Co., the amount of videos rented daily in America is 6 million. That’s twice the amount of books checked out at the library daily. Books let you imagine characters and places yourself, while television does it all for you. Television is fast-paced while books allow you to absorb what is going on; you can pause and reflect. Also, books can easily be taken everywhere – the dentist, doctor’s, or a road trip – while you can not always have a television. With books you can see authentic literature from early in history, instead of relying on modern television interpretations of those same time periods; for example, you can read the actual words of great teachers, like Confucius, Aristotle, and Plato.

Second, television is full of disturbing images. People flip the channel to their favorite shows, full of innuendo, language and other such negative things. Even kids’ cartoons such as “Tom & Jerry” and “Spongebob Squarepants” show frequent physical aggression. Also, there are the shows that fill our head with horrible items, such as murders. Studies show that by the time the average child reaches middle school, he will have witnessed some 8,000 television murders! No wonder little kids have nightmares. Another thing is the amount of drug usage in television. Drugs are made to look not only acceptable, but cool to kids as well. Many kids’ shows also portray talking disrespectfully towards parents and teachers.

Third, television takes up time that could otherwise be spent on creative endeavors and study time. Wouldn’t you rather be cooking food instead of sitting down to a cooking show? Why would you watch an art show when you could be painting yourself? And then there’s the issue of school studying. The average American child spends 1,680 minutes a week watching television. If it causes your grades to fail, you know you are watching too much. If you feel you must watch television, you should at least spend some of your time on educational shows. Enough is enough!

Most importantly to me, exceeding television guidelines can lead to obesity and eye fatigue. Children who watch too much television are more likely to become overweight. Many times, children are not just watching unhealthy things, while watching they are stuffing their faces with unhealthy things as well. Experts suggest that you never watch more than two hours per day. Besides, wouldn’t you rather be playing sports than watching them? Also, while sitting too close cannot cause eye damage, it can cause eye fatigue. Let’s stay in shape, instead of allowing television to shape us!

While it can be entertaining, we should never allow television to take over our minds and bodies. If we cannot eliminate television from our households, we should at least control how much we watch. Don’t let a little black box rule your life!