Essay#2

Roger Phasayaseng
Lauren Servais
English 1A
10 February 2009
#3: Winn argues that television interferes with family life and keeps families from interacting in meaningful ways. Do you agree or disagree? Why?

Imagine the world without television, what would it be like if we had no T.V. inside our homes? What would it feel like to have your T.V. taken away after it has changed the lifestyle of American families? T.V. plays a huge role if not probably the most important one in my life. Why it is something I like to call sports, commonly labeled as a popular American culture if not a phenomenon. It isn’t just me that watches T.V., there are millions of other Americans who watch T.V. because we are born into a generation where we must have television. Since the introduction of television, I believe that interaction between families in meaningful ways has been changed negatively. Children face social communication problems because television affects their ability to communicate with other students. Families seem to have less interaction between each other and less socialization amongst themselves. And it is a temporary solution to family and relationship disputes that don’t really get solved but get worse.
First thing I want to tackle is that children who grow up in this society face a huge problem with verbal communication. Interacting and speaking with other students has become a challenge for young children raised by television. “Studies show that importance of eye-to-eye contact for instance, in real-life relationships, and indicate that the nature of one’s eye-contact patterns, whether one looks another squarely in the eye or looks to the side or shifts one’s gaze from side to side, may play a significant role in one’s success or failure in human relationships”(Winn 462). During television programs, children who watch the T.V. alone are spoken to by the person onscreen speaking directly into the camera. So to the viewer it appears the person onscreen is interacting with them. Except the fact that the viewer doesn’t have any means to communicate back. They can’t ask any questions, make any eye contact, and don’t expect any answers or replies either. This seriously effects kid’s communication with other students, children, and even adults. This may also affect their ability to learn since communication plays a key role in how students interact with their teachers at school. These kids often become lonely at school because they have a hard time making friends and just generally interacting with other students. This leads to parents who don’t socialize or interact with their kids because the kid is often left alone to watch T.V. by them self.
How parents interact and socialize with their children is vital to who the children will become when they grown up. Families who interact with each other daily at dinner time, during homework, and during free time usually determine if the family feels connected with each other. When parents and children socialize with each other, it gives them both an opportunity to both learn more about each other. The parents get a better perspective on how the kid is doing at school and what kind of friends they are hanging out with. Kids who get that kind of attention from their parents make them feel confident as they need guidance in order to reach adulthood. Television is very time consuming and often dominates this family bonding time at home. “As family ties grow weaker and vaguer as children’s lives become more separate from their parents’ as parents’ educational role in their children’s lives is taken over the by the media, the school, and the peer group, family life becomes increasingly more unsatisfying for both parents and children”(Winn 464).

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