Life is hard sometimes. Actually, life is hard a lot of the time. That's why television (despite it's bad rep) is something I depend on to not only offer me an escape, but a connection to the world outside of my own.
Television, especially in the 21st century, has been viewed as the villain. It destroys the imagination (and the beauty of the great outdoors), it makes us spend less time with our family and more time gazing at a screen, and it instills terrible and corrupt ideas into the heads of children.
While I don't necessarily disagree that television has this negative influence on people, I think we get too distracted by these bad effects and forget the good about television.
Like I said before, life gets pretty rough, and sometimes you just want an escape. People find that escape in different ways, and usually find it in more than one. For me, books, movie and television offer an opportunity for me to leave--however temporarily--the stress that comes day by day.
I've struggled with an addiction to television, particularly in high school. I would spend too much time watching TV, and too little time planning fun things with my friends, and I eventually grew into a social slump, where the only thing I would look forward to in my day is the new episode of one of the shows I watched.
I've long since grown from this addiction. College definitely helps: you are around people all the time, so its hard to feel as though you don't have a social life. Instead of it being hard to plan stuff with friends, you are trying to see when you can take a break and have some time to yourself to watch your favorite show.
After a stressful day, I love to escape by watching my favorite show. I'll be honest-- it's nice to be distracted with a character's problems rather than my own. However, not only does it provide an escape, but it connects me to the world outside of my college. While I love Iona, I want to know about what's going on throughout the country and the world, and little updates on my Facebook or Twitter accounts don't cut it sometimes.
Maybe it's a little odd for someone my age, but I loved watching the news since middle school. Maybe it makes my problems seem less big, or it just distracts me from what's going on in my life, but whatever the reason watching the news is strangely cathartic for me.
So, television, while it may have some negative sides to it, has provided an opportunity for me to briefly escape my own problems and stress, whether that be through a fictional character or the reminder that the world is greater than my own.
