Does television play a positive or negative role in the modern world?

Arguments

1. Television is now playing a very important part in our lives.
2. Television is not only a convenient source of entertainment, but also a comparatively cheap one.
3. Television keeps one informed about current events, allows one to follow the latest developments in science and politics and offers an endless series of programmes which are both instructive and entertaining.
4. A lot of television programmes introduce people to things they have never thought or heard of before.
5. Television has been good company to those who do not work, like housewives, lonely old people, etc.
6. Television provides enormous possibilities for education, like school programmes via closed-circuit television.
7. Television provides special broadcasts for those in TV university, or open university. It also offers specialised subjects like language teaching, sewing, cooking, painting, cosmetology, etc.
8. Television does the job of education in the broadest sense. Instructive pmgrammes achieve their goal through entertaining the viewers.
9. Compared with the radio, everything on television is more lifelike, vivid, and real.
10. Television may be a vital factor in holding a family together where there are, for example, economic problems and husband and wife seem at breaking point.

Counter-arguments

1. Television is a great time-waster.
2. Television makes the viewer completely passive because everything is presented to him without any effort on his part.
3. Television is to blame for the fact that children take longer to learn to read these days and barely see the point at all of acquiring the skill.
4. Television takes up too much of our time. We no longer have enough time for hobbies, entertaining activities, and other outside amusements like theatres, cinemas, sports, etc.
5. People rush home, gulp their food, which is often as simple as sandwich and a glass of beer, and start watching the TV programmes.
6. The monster, i.e. television, demands absolute silence and attention. No one dares to open his mouth during a programme.
7. People have grown addicted to television, often neglecting the necessary and more important things like meals, sleep and even work.
8. A lot of parents use television as a pacifier for their children. They put their children in front of the set and don't care whether the children are exposed to rubbishy commercials or spectacles of violence as long as the children are quiet.
9. What the viewer receives from television is nothing but second-hand experience. He is completely cut off from the real world.
10. Television prevents people from communicating with each other. It has done a lot of harm to the relationship between family members.

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