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<title> From Use to Abuse </title>
When it comes to television, the first thing that has to be said is that people all over the worldare constantly using and abusing it. And in most cases it is hard to tell the difference. We can get important information from our TV, but is this information always to trust? We can have a 30 minute escape from reality, but shouldn't we focus on making something about our reality instead? I happen to believe the abuses are more and more taking over the uses, and I am truly afraid that television as we know it in our modern society is ruining mankind.

Once upon a time television started out with the best prospects. It simply worked as an informationsource and as an excuse for social gatherings. TV only had a few programs to offer and it was turned on when they started and turned off when they ended. We can't call this anything but use, because this was healthy watching. It made people get together and maybe later discuss what they all had heard and seen. Of course this also made it harder to fool or brainwash people since they had a chance to reflect over what they had just been told. But the peace didn't last for long and that time is gone now. In only a few decades television has become one of the greatest threats to humanity.

Today people watch TV for hours all alone. Often it doesnít really matter what's on, only it's something. All the time people of today are choosing to stay home with the TV, instead of spending qualitytime with other humanbeings. Everybody knows thereís a lot of money in TV-business and also a lot of competition. TV-stations are going out of their way to create news, and therefor we can seldom really trust what we see and hear on TV. Also there is no limit to what TV has to offer. In the United States the channels and stations are endless, and probably that ís what the rest of the world is heading towards too. If you want to you can spend your whole life with your TV, and there are actually people trying that. You can get all your news, entertainment, education, religion etc. from this little (or enormous) box. Most terrible though, is that little children nowadays are placed infront of the TV for hours. This means people are not only being psychologically damaged but also physically. Because while the childrens' language skills are getting worse from all this passive watching and non-stimulating environments, their bodies are getting weaker from all staying still. And these children of today are the adults of tomorrow. All of this is nothing but abuse.

I don't wanna judge to hard though, since I am using this medium myself. I like being able to get news several times a day into my own home, or to watch an interesting documentary every now and then. And it can be great to rent and watch a good movie with friends if Iím exhausted one evening. But this is where I want to draw the line. This is more or less what TV should be all about. What's actually going on in our lives should always be more important and interesting than what's going on in the TV of ours. Actual people preferable to actors, and traveling to traveling programs. But society of today is going on in the shadow of television. And that is real tragic.

TV is taking over our lives and not many people are even complaining. Because it's hard to find reason to complain about something that can entertain you 24 hour a day, and that is what's so dangerous about it. It brainwashes people to believe it enriches their lives. Neil Postman writes in his Amusing Ourselves to death that television serves us most usefully when presenting junkentertainment and most ill when it co-opts serious modes of discourse. I say it's all as bad. Because when the real world is no longer to prefer to a visual one it doesnít really matters why or because of what. What is important is that something has gone so wrong.
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