TV is a bad influence

First I will rebutt my opponents points and then move on to my own. Just because people turn on televisions doesn't mean that they aren't a bad influence. Even though as you and I know that TV's don't turn themselves on that doesn't excuse them from being a bad influence. Second my opponent stated that " A widely accepted fact is that these studies are biased and untrue. The linked problems to these tests can be seen in several million people across the nation. One in five people have attention deficit disorder, violent behavior I'll get to later, obesity is seen in one of three people, mainly due to fast food and hectic lives, and poor performance in school has been rising due to the increase in drug and alcohol use. Three out of every four high school students have reported to have drank excessively once or more before graduation, ten percent of teenagers have been reported using an illegal drug and those are just the ones that have been reported. In comparison, the rising problems with drugs and alcohol are far more important than the few affects of television. Thus, even a random study would most likely include many of these types of people. Furthermore of this point, even if there was a likely hood between television and these problems, which is not what I'm saying, parents should be monitoring their kids and keeping them involved in extracurricular activities, homework, chores, etc. Which brings me to the second argument." All the studies and statistics you showed were 1 in 3 or 3 out of 4 for some reason or another but my point is that TV still has a part in this, I agree with you that all these problems are not only because of TV but a part of it is making TV a bad influence. Also my opponent stated that parents should be making sure that their kids are doing stuff that they should be doing but if we remove TV from the picture that whole job is done. TV is a bad influence by making parents have that extra hassel of making their kids do stuff other than watch TV which proves my point that TV is a bad influence. Also some parents don't even do that stuff where they are monitoring their kids and keeping them involved which results into bad scores and multiple problems, if TV wasn't there none of this would happen. "Psychologists across the world agree that causation does not equal correlation. Many studies have proven that aggressive acts, although cause by television, cannot happen unless they live in a bad environment. Thus the environment is the reason for the aggression, not television." Again as I said above that TV is not the sole reason of making children much more aggresive but it is a part of that effect. It is a researched and well known fact that children who do watch more TV are more agressive and violent than those who don't watch as much. "In conclusion, rather than focusing on television, we should solve the real problems at hand, for example, bad environments, underage drinking and drug abuse. Only until these problems are solve can we examine the truth about television viewing. Saying that television has these affects on people is like saying that with one match we can melt the polar ice caps. Thank you" TV is a real problem at hand it makes kids do worse on tests, makes them antisocial, makes them far off worse than those who don't watch TV all these problems we could stop if we just got rid of TV's. TV is a bad influence and this is why: Television discourages face-to-face interaction among children or families. POINT SUPPORT: If you are in front of the TV the whole day then how can you be interacting with your family and talking and stimulating your mind? TV makes people completely antisocial and closes them off from their family and society. STATISTIC: Watching too much violence on TV at a young age may lead to antisocial behavior later on. A new study shows preschool boys who watched TV violence were more likely to develop antisocial behavior by ages 7 to 9 than those who watched nonviolent or educational television. But the same effect wasn't seen in girls. Researchers say the results are significant because antisocial and aggressive behavior among young children is associated with violent behavior in older children. In addition, they found that much of what was considered "children's television" programming actually contained a significant amount of violence. Television programs model undesirable behavior such as drug and alcohol use or unhealthy relationships. POINT SUPPORT: Television shows kids to take drugs and to have unhealthy relationships when they always show the hero of the show having these. There is always one show that shows the cool kid smoking or the jock breaking up with his girlfriend, why should we let our kids see this and influence them to this behavior? STATISTIC: In one year 646,713 people died from drug abuse and it all started with TV. Kids would see shows where the hero would be smoking or drinking and then want to be like him and take drugs, why should we encourage this kind of behavior? This drop in verbal communication skills to an increase in television watching among youth at the expense of communication with their parents or other adults. Television costs a lot of money and hurts the economy POINT SUPPORT: You don't realize how much you spend on that TV and all it's equipment, you could have saved a lot of money and many Americans would be out of poverty. STATISTIC: TV: The cost of your TV can range anywhere from a few hundred dollars to several thousand if you decide to go for the newer plasma flat screen TVs. Take this cost and multiply it by several times, since you will likely own far more than one TV during your lifetime. Entertainment cabinet system: Most people don't consider this cost when purchasing a TV, but you need a stand or entertainment cabinet on which to display your TV and other components of your entertainment system. This will cost anywhere from a few hundred dollars on up, depending on how fancy you decide to go. You can also assume that you will replace this at least once during your lifetime. Cable: Once they have a TV, most people aren't satisfied watching only the free basic channels. Most will subscribe to a cable or satellite package that will cost them anywhere from $20 a month for bare-bones cable channels to well over $100 a month. Pay-per-view: There is an increasing number of special pay-per-view sporting and entertainment events now found on TV. You might spend nothing to over $100 a month on these, depending on your viewing habits. Movies: In addition to cable, most people are going to want to watch movies. That means either purchasing the DVDs or renting them from a service such as NetFlix and paying a monthly fee. DVD/DVR: In order to watch the movies that you rent, you are going to need a decent DVD player. This will cost at least a few hundred dollars. And again, you'll likely replace this a minimum of several times over your lifetime as technologies change and better quality devices are created. You also may buy recording devices or DVRs like Tivo and related accessories to catch all of your favorite shows. Energy: You will need to pay for the electricity to run the TV and other related electronics. This will vary greatly, depending on the type of TV you have and how much energy costs where you live, but it will likely be a minimum of $10 a month and possibly much more. Commercials: A huge hidden cost of TV that people never consider are all the commercials they watch. The commercials are there to get you to buy products -- and they are effective. Economist Juliet Schor estimated that for every hour of TV a person watches each week, he or she will increase his or her annual spending by about $200, according to a 1999 article in the Spokane, Wash., Spokesman-Review. In 2005, Nielsen Media Research reported that the average person watched approximately 4.5 hours of TV a day, or 31.5 hours a week.