In my opinion, the television is really declining the communication between family members. The best time to talk to family members is dinner time however after the television started to grow up the communication in dinner time declined. Especially parents started to watch the news during the dinner time. However, the communication between family members has a huge effect on the consolidation of the family bond. Instead of talking about their daily routines and share their ideas about a problem or a topic, they focus on the television and some important points could be missed. Maybe a child has a problem in school or has a great news from school and wanted to share with his or her parents.
4 or 5 years ago, I and my family went to visit my aunt in Mersin. She has a huge television in her living room. For dinner, she invited relatives of her husband. After we ate our dinner in a fun, someone opened the television and the communication is finished. I am really serious about that. It finished. We were around 15 people and everyone was watching television like they were hypnotized. The important point in here was not the program on the television at that time, the important point is just watching something. No matter what it is.
However, the decline started with the television but it continued with the other technological advances such as smartphones, computers and tablet.
I really feel bad about that because I think sharing ideas is one the essential point of being a human..
Well I do not want to blame an inanimate object for any social problems. Social problems is between people after all.
ReplyDeleteI think the media devices can also be a way for us to create new forms of socialization. Every evening when I speak with my mother I ask her about the dizi or show she watches or when we visit each other we socialize around the TV. Sometimes I talk about the tv shows I am watching, or how the dizi she watches actually based on a foreign version that i watched. For example they were watching Paramparça while I was watching Switched at Birth.
I think the devices do not really have to make a gap between us, we can also use them to share ideas and opinions. Like I am writing this from my PC :)
Of course it has good effects as well ^^ the results could be different in different families:)
ReplyDeleteBtw again thank you for your opinions, its good to see different perspectives:)
Though I would agree that TV generally leads to less conversation in a household, I would also argue that this is a positive thing, as it cuts out the meager topics of unimportant conversations , that are produced for conversation's sake.
ReplyDeleteI don't think the switching on of a TV, and the cessation of familial conversation is an indicator of anyting negative on a grand scale. It seems more like a symptom of simply having no real input towards an important topic for conversation. For people will talk about a great many things, if said things are of the utmost importance, while a TV is switched on. Maybe your family just wished to simply focus on the TV for a while, mental processes may require breaks too. If anything, it makes you more human, considering the times we live in now, and the conditioning we're implemented with by forms of modern entertainment.
Then again, this is from the point of view of myself and my family. Sure we have conversation for conversation's sake (we are human), and sure we focus on the big glowing screen with moving things inside and not talk for a while; but if the TV is on, and something important or relevant sparks up, it finds its way into verbal communication.
Don't worry, if an idea is important enough to be shared, human communication knows no bounds. If a switched on TV ceased all conversation, it probably meant that people just wanted to... "be" for a while.
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ReplyDeleteComing from a family whose members barely even say 'Hi' to one another, I've seen the evolution of the social disconnection. I don't think that it's particularly the TV what's the problem, I might prefer to say it's the technology and it's going worse in every new technologic age. I remember that my family came together in many occasions when our favorite TV show was on, maybe they weren't sophisticated meetings but at least, physically, TV took my family together. However, now with smartphones and the internet, people are disoriented with the psychical reality and their surroundings. Now that we have our own apps, accounts, we don't even share anything in common. So, I think it's not TV, but the progress of technology and its way, to be blamed. Also, I think it's also about the time we are living in, the individuality rises. They say that the rulers supported the individualistic views to prevent the society to come together. Though, I think individuality is a very important step in the progress of the humankind.
ReplyDeleteI'm not a blamer side of the TV, I blame social structure about this disconnection. I think we are in the era of individualism and having biological bonds doesn't satisfy anymore. The unchosen relations we have, became more obvious day by day. If you have nothing to entertain you have to connect with what you have, like family for centuries. But TV just give another option to entertain yourself. As an example, none of my connection with a close friend affected by TV. If I want to share, talk, entertain, I do. So television just unearth the forced concept of social structures, such as family.
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