Television Does More Harm Then Good

Firstly, allow me to note that Con has plagiarised portions of his previous round from this internet article: http://www.health.am... an . This is extremely poor conduct to say the least, and I'll let the voters decide what to do about it. The sources Pro has provided are simply articles arguing against television - making their own arguments. Sources should instead be used to corroborate the debaters own arguments, so all of Pro's sources are irrelevant and should be ignored. He simply googled 'television harm' or something similar and posted whatever came up. 1) The internet does indeed allow the spread of ideas and viewpoints to an even greater degree. However, this is the very reason why it cannot replace television - there is far more ignorant garbage posted everywhere on the internet than on television. While the majority of mainstream television programs are regulated to ensure quality control, the internet is a stewpot of unreliable data and bogus statistics. In addition, the internet can be a poor device for underage people. The prevalence of porn, violent and disturbing videos, swearing on forums and various other obscenities detract from the internet's attractiveness as an information source, while television is regulated to avoid such things. 2) While some news sites are somewhat biased, this is inevitable and cannot be avoided - many news programs are for a particular audience, many are impressively neutral. In any case, this bias does not compare to the horrible bias found on the internet. Consider conservapedia, which is notorious for its appalling distortion and outright lying, yet is used by a great deal of right wing people for information. I could name many more sites. In addition, this response has the same problems as the first - it proposes the internet as a replacement for television, but the internet has significant problems of its own. I'm also not sure what the point of responding in this way is - we're discussing whether television does more harm than good, not whether something else is better. Proposing the internet as a superior source of information is irrelevant - Pro must demonstrate the resolution to be true, not show that something else would be false by the resolution. 3) Pro has simply ignored this point and opted to rant instead. As an uncontested argument, it wins me the debate if Pro does not respond. Responses to contentions: C1: I. Okay. i. Some links for this research would be nice. Regardless, there are many problems with these types of research. It may simply be that children who already have ADHD are more attracted to watching television as it is one of the only entertainment forms that appeals to them. Correlation does not always equal causation - ADHD may cause increased television watching instead of the other way around. II. Even if I were to concede that these studies are entirely accurate (and since Pro has not posted them there is no way of knowing), we still must consider that there are many, many societal factors that affect childhood development - for instance, the main cause of rises in obesity are undoubtedly mainly caused by the increasing prevalence of junk food. Television is at most one of many factors that might affect things like obesity and childhood aggression, and while these are still relatively grey areas, the benefits of television for society as a whole are clear. III. Evidence that this causes problems please. Plus, advertising is inevitable for any entertainment form - form radio to the internet. Otherwise it wouldn't function. Even if television were entirely eliminated, advertising would still be everywhere. Television is not really the issue here, but our capitalistic society; eliminating television would not eliminate advertising. C2: I. Again, these kinds of studies can be highly deceiving. It could simply be that families that can afford several computers including one for their children to use come from higher class families than people who simply have a family television that their children watch. Children from richer background tend to achieve higher results for several reasons irrelevant to this topic. II. The computer has its own problems that can make it highly unsuited for a child, as pointed out before. III. How does watching television preclude people from also reading? I follow several television series and am still an avid reader. This point is irrelevant.