Television has long been called an Idiot box but the latest news is that this " Idiot box " has evolved. Now it  has the capacity to transform anyone who looks at it long enough into an Idiot.

With the advent and increasing popularity of television, there was a need for more and more programs so that more and more people could be hooked to it. It was a vicious circle. Instead of using the television as a break from the routine of life, people began to see work as an interruption to watching tv. They would procrastinate doing anything meaningful and while away time front of the TV,  munching chips or some such thing, and exercising their fingers on the remote.

Soon, the number of programs were enough to fill any one channel, so the next best thing happened, new channels were set up. These new channels needed new faces, new ideas, new celebrities. People began to get their fifteen seconds of fame. These fifteen seconds expanded into fifteen minutes, and then fifteen hours. But at the same time, strangely, people that used to get fifteen years of fame began to get fiftten months of it, and eventually fifteen weeks. Soon, a time will come when the real heroes will be lost among the pretenders. Thanks to television, we have an age of equality where ciphers rub shoulders with the figures.

 

Also, now we have channels for everything – music, fashion, news, religion, nature, movies – you name it, they have it. One doesn't have to step outside the comforts of his living room, not even  to smell the air, see the birds chirp, enjoy nature or do anything at all. The television brings everything to his room.

Watching TV gives a person a chance to enhance your look. Look at it long enough and your eyes will be affected and  soon you will need glasses;or you could use contact lenses. Experiment with the style of your glasses or the colors of your lenses and have a new look almost everyday. Isn't that an amazing gift? Without the TV chances are one would have perfect eyesight for his entire life and he would never get a chance to experiment with glasses and lenses.

 

Reading was something that we all did before we had TV. One had to read Wuthering Heights to be affected by the moors and the bleak hills, or read Great Expectations to experience the atmosphere in Miss Havisham's room where the clocks have stood still for twenty whole years. But thankfully because of the television our children will be spared the ordeal of reading these books, with the magical ability to transform a person into another age and time, for themselves. They will not have the need to use their minds, as the tv will do it for them. Applying one's mind after all is taxing, and the latest research ( OK! this might not be true but I am very sure I read it somewhere) suggests that one hour of thinking takes more energy than three hours of working out.

 

(If my limited ability as a satirist made it seem like that I was actually talking about the benefits of television, then I am going to use these last few lines to say that this article was aimed at trying to get you to switch off the TV,  and go outside to do something truly enriching)

Television has long been called an Idiot box but the latest news is that this " Idiot box " has evolved. Now it  has the capacity to transform anyone who looks at it long enough into an Idiot.