Is TV a conversation killer?
TV is a very important medium today and we almost ervery evening we sit in front of our TV set watching shows. There are shows for nearly erveryone, e.g. cop shows, talk shows, the news, wildlife programmes, soap operas and so on. But the question my essay is dealing with today is if whether TV is a conversation killer.
I think TV leaves only a little space for individual imagination. If you read a book for example you always imagine how the things described look like, for eaxample how the people and places look like and how the actors would behave if you have met them. TV shows everything in detail and they don't even do not want you to have thoughts of your own. For To a TV channel you are a consumer and they want you to simply listen and watch. Compared to books there are things which a TV show also does, for example to creating a feeling of tension, but the difference is that you do not really imagine what will happen, in front of your TV set you simply wait to see what will happen. While reading a book you feel the tension and at the same time imagine what is going on. This means that while reading a book many more areas in your brain are working and you are much more thrilled, of course this is only if you are able to read fluently. Mankind is always going down the path of the least resistance and this path means watching TV. The question I am asking myself when I observe people watching TV is always "how will they ever be able to build up their own way of thinking and doing things?". In my childhood my parents owned an old TV set, but we received only two programmes, therefore I found watching TV a little boring. Luckily my aunt was working and still works at a book store, and so it came about (or, "so it came to pass") that my mother got all her books for free. I very much enjoyed reading these books very much, and though my grade at maths was only a four I had at least had good grades in languages. Today I prefer to read English books rather than German ones and in my opinion my English is getting better. I speak in the English language too and I would have never been able to if I had watched too many TV shows. Actually I speak three languages and I talk a lot to other people, but I avoid watching TV. I know people who watch a lot of TV shows, but I am not able to talk to them in a senseful meaningful way. My recommendation is: Watch the news on TV, read the newspapers and please everyone try to read books again. You will reach the moment when reading becomes easy and you are able to enjoy what you read.
Another lovely piece Lorenz - and on an interesting topic too!
Many of the corrections are just about word order.
Remember: use "many" for things that you can count (e.g. areas of the brain)
use "much" for things you are thinking about in a "lump" (e.g. I don't have much butter/much time)
I love to read too and it is often a shock when I see a film of a book I have read and the people, places and landscapes do not match those in my imagination. I also believe that when we are reading we are being more active and if something is too disturbing to us we are protected because we just stop reading. Conversely, if we are watching film/video, I believe it is more possible to see something that we are not ready for. There has been a lot of debate about this in England recently regarding children seeing pornography and whether it will have detrimental long-term effects upon them.
