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<title> TV's effect on society </title>
Television is a great source of entertainment. If you are ever bored, all you have to do is grab the remote control and turn on the TV. But did it ever cross your mind that television might not only exist to entertain us? Maybe there are other interests involved, hidden in underlying messages in the different TV shows. Television tells us what is beautiful and what is not, and this has had a great effect on western society. We are also affected by all the violence and stupidity we have to watch on TV. In this essay I will reflect on how television influences our society and what the consequences are.
	 The first thing I would like to discuss is the role which television plays in shaping our society's idea of the ideal look and behavior. I dare say that TV can be blamed for playing a big part in it. Let us for instance pick a show like Baywatch. The actors are all living up to our society's definition of perfection; the men are well built and tanned, with white teeth and thick hair. The women run around in almost non-existent bathing suits, with skinny bodies and disproportionately big breasts. They come out of the water, barely alive after almost having drowned, with the make-up still perfectly on. We can see the consequences of this portrayal of perfection by looking at the small fortune women pay to have plastic surgery and lipo suction, or by the fact that many women refuse to go outside the door without make-up on. Teenage girls are probably the most vulnerable and easily affected in this matter, and I can confirm that assumption by looking at the statistics of anorexia.
	 The second thing that also influences us much more than we know, is TV violence. Again, it affects the young mostly, and I am sure that many children have trouble distinguishing between movies and the real world. On TV they can beat each other up for hours, shoot each other several times and still be standing up, bleeding but still incredibly tough and brave. Also in this case I do not doubt that TV is largely responsible for the increasing violence in society and the petrifying number of cases of children killing children we have seen in the past few years. How is a six-year old supposed to understand that TV is not real, and that the human body is far more fragile than it appears to be on TV? The V chip that is discussed in the article "Locking Out Violence" in TIME Magazine, July 24, 1995 by Ginia Bellafante, is a technology that can sift out shows with too much violence. I think that all means to protect the children from TV violence is worth attention.
	 In addition, we can not help being drenched in stupidity almost each time we turn on the tube. Shows like Ricky Lake is shown to the entire world on a daily basis. The most unintelligent people in the United States tell their personal secrets that they later discuss in public. I dare claim that too much television makes people stupid and more concerned about discussing shows like Ricky Lake or the latest intrigue on Baywatch than the children starving in Africa or the refugees of former Yugoslavia. But who can possibly gain anything from making people more stupid? I have a theory that might seem paranoid, but if you think about it you might find that it could be true. My theory is that TV is used as a tool by governments around the world to keep their citizens under control like a herd of sheep with the TV working as a sheep dog. By showing programs that require no thinking at all and that concern very irrelevant matters, they can to a limited extent keep people from reacting too strongly on more relevant things that might hamper governmental actions. The government that has used this method most effectively and basically conquered the world with it, is the United States. They are successfully spreading propaganda and the American dream over the world. Everywhere you go there are people wearing clothes with American flags; and who does not know at least the tune of the American national anthem? Of course, there are capitalistic interests behind this; you could say that television is one big commercial for the United States.
	 My intention has not been to encourage you to throw out the television, but simply to join me in my reflections on TV's effect on our society. You can calmly watch Baywatch or Ricky Lake if you want, but you might consider keeping a book and a newspaper beside you in the sofa to keep the unintelligence away. What is far more important is to keep the children from watching gratuitous violence, and it is essential to find a solution to this problem.
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