How do movies or television influence people’s behavior? Use reasons and specific examples to support your answer.
Nowadays, television has become the most popular type of communication and entertainment. Because of its popularity, television clearly has a far-reaching effect on human life, in particular, on people’s behavior.
On the one hand, television provides people with many undeniable advantages. With a TV, you can easily gain numerous knowledge in every areas. If you want to get some information about the current situation in Iraq, just turn on your TV and open CNN or BBC channels. You are a student ? You want to be well-prepared for the coming entrance exam to university ? Please pick up the remote control and switch to the educational channel.
Furthermore, through programs on TV, people can learn many practical skills to communicate with each other. The TV programs often simulate cases happening in all aspects of real life. Therefore, people can draw their own lessons from those cases. For example, from movies shown on TV, people could come to know how to behave in certain cases and then, apply into their real lives to solve their own issues. Also, TV brings about a huge source of entertainment, making people’s lives more pleasant. After a long working-day, tired from all stuff you’ve done, you only need to stay at home, lying on the sofa to enjoy interesting films of all kinds, from action films, horror films to romantic films and so on. This helps you feel at ease and escape from your tensions. In general, TV has clearly become an essential part in human modern life.
On the other hand, TV also brings with it serious problems. Watching TV could lead to a number of health issues. For instance, in developed countries where TV is popular, many children acquire obesity because of watching TV too much without exercises. As a consequence, it leads to laziness and health deterioration. In addition, not only could TV harm people physically but it could also impact on people mentally in many cases. More and more violent behaviors are shown on TV today. As a result, they become persist obsessions in people’s mental and gradually lead them to violence in real life. Especially, young people’s fledgling brains are vulnerable to these stimuli. Many young criminals are found to commit crimes due to the fact that they simply imitate what they have seen on the screen. In short, if ignored, TV impact would result in long-lasting and head-achy problems in society.
All in all, like a double-edged knife, TV brings about both advantages and disadvantages. What people need to do is to make use of its positive things and to restrain its negative ones as much as possible.
TOEFL listening lectures: A university lecture by a professor of Comparative Religion
