▶ Your Answer :
The debate on whether television should be
used to instruct people rather than to entertain them is a keen issue.
Naturally, people growing from different surroundings have different
perspectives towards it. In my opinion, I believe that TV should be used to
entertain people instead of instructing people. My view can be greatly
substantiated by the reasons addressed below.
The first reason which can be seen by every
person is that it is a human nature to seek an entertainment when people watch
television. In other words, people don’t expect any instruction when they
decide to watch television programs. Usually, the time that people tend to
watch television is when they get back from heavy, demanding work in the
evening or when they need to take a rest exhausted from concentration on some
duties. That is to say, people are inclined to turn on television just out of their
nature seeking for entertainment. A statistics from Korea Broadcasting Station
illustrates this. Most popular programs are entertain-driven ones such as
drama, reality shows and comedy shows whereas the instructive documentary or a program
that delivers knowledge earn a small group of viewers. Therefore most
broadcasting stations put the entertaining programs in the golden time of 8-9
pm in the evening when most people watch television, by allocating their various
programs into several time spots.
Another equally important reason is that television
is not the best tool for instruction. When we watch television, the direction
of an information flow is one-way. That is to say, we can only receive some information
from television. Discussion and feedback which are one of the most important
factors in learning and teaching don’t happen in television viewing behavior.
Instead, we have many alternatives to get information such as internet or
off-line education systems. In those methods, many interactions between the
teachers and students can take place. For example, I studied finance lecture in
the university, I had a puzzling concept regarding ‘currency change’. I needed
to know the economic concept, so I tried to find related explanation on the
internet. It was really easy to search a difficult concept on the internet by
putting some words in the search engine such as Google. I can even interact
with other people by chatting over about the ‘currency change’ concept in the
internet. Otherwise, it would be very demanding if I tried to find it on television
because I would need to look up all the programs and put time to watch the entire
program.
Looking at all the statements above, we can
say that television is more apt to entertain people than to instruct them.
Admittedly, it is true that television has some instructive functions especially
in a case of news, but with all the factors contemplated, the television’s role
of giving entertainment surpasses that of instructing people. |