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Television
   Today, I’d like to talk about television. I want to discuss with you television’s good and bad effects on our life.
   Television was invented in 1939. In the early 1950s, it entered into our households. Since then, millions 0f children have grown up in front of the TV set. Now, many people in the United States spend most of their free time watching television. It is reasonable to say that television plays an important role in our life. It has greatly changed people’s social and personal life. One should surely thank its inventors for the joy and the interest that they have brought into our life, for the information and education it has provided for both adults and children.
    Firstly, television has transformed information.  It has opened a window in everybody’s life.  No newspaper has ever reached so many people and shown so clearly what was happening right now in their own country and everywhere else. Television not only gives the news instantly, it also shows it in pictures, which is more powerful than words. It can be said that television has brought reality to the public. Young men will never again go to war as they did in 1914, thinking that it was a romantic adventure. Millions of people now have seen the disaster that a war could bring to people’s life. The dead bodies, the blood, the homeless children, the flaming houses are all shown before your eyes through television. The result is a general revolt against war, and perhaps more interest in helping the victims of a war.
   Secondly, television has also transformed politics. With the help of television, now even people from the most remote area can follow political issues, see and hear the candidates debate with each other on television. Through television’s intensive coverage on the election issue, people get to know the different parties’ platforms, their different domestic and foreign policies. When people are better informed, they are more likely to vote. The larger the voter turnout is, the greater political democracy will be achieved.
   However, like almost anything else, television has its bad side as well as its good side. Many people now worry about the effects that television has on our life, on society in general, and especially on the young people.
   Firstly, sociologists think that television increases the gap between people. As most of people’s free time is spent in front of the TV sets, there is less time for friends’ gathering, visits and parties. People become less known to each other. This is especially the case with the families. Because of the distraction of television, there is little chance of family members to sit around together and talk to one another after dinner. It is well known that many of our problems—everything, in fact, from the generation gap to the high divorce rate to some forms of mental illness are caused at least in part by failure to communicate. We do not tell each other what is disturbing us. The result is emotional difficulty of one kind or another.
   Secondly, television is considered to be extremely harmful to the young people. Educators, psychologists, and crime experts complain that the young have spent too much time watching television.  They suggest television, or at least a considerable part of its programs, should be forbidden to young people.
   These experts’ arguments are mainly focused on two effects television has on young people. First of all, the young people believe and want to imitate whatever they see on TV. They lack enough experience to realize that TV shows present an unreal world; that commercials lie in order to sell products that are sometimes bad or useless. They do believe they will make more friends if they drink a certain beer. They do believe that the violence they see is normal and acceptable.
   According to some statistics, by the time the young people leave high school, most of them have watched abut 18,000 killings or other acts of violence. How could they be shocked to see the same in real life? All educators and psychologists agree that the "television generations" are more violent than their parents and grandparents.
   The other effect on young people, according to these experts, is that television has made the young less patient. They are used to TV shows; they are used to those quick and entertaining programs. As a result, they do not have the patience to read a book that requires thinking; nor do they have the patience to listen to a teacher who doesn’t do funny things like the people on TV. They expect all problems to be solved happily in ten, fifteen, or thirty minutes. They do not have the patience to find out that there is more entertainment in a good book than in a farcical TV show. Educators report that the generation growing up with television can barely write an English sentence, even at the college level. Writing, as we all know, is often learned from reading.
    All right, now. A few last remarks about our topic on television. There is no doubt that television has deeply transformed our life and our society. There is no doubt that, along with its benefits, it has brought Problems. The important thing for us is how to utilize the benefits to the full and, in the mean time, how to reduce the problems to the minimum. There is no point arguing whether or not television should be thrown out of the household, for whether we like it or not, television is here to stay.