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The Negative Effects Of Television On Society

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As Mark Twain once said, “If you don’t read the newspaper, you are uninformed. If you do read the newspaper, you are misinformed”. Sadly, this also applies to watching television news. Television is a powerful means of communication, information, and entertainment, however, watching too much television makes people more paranoid. Television is certainly one of the most popular systems for transmitting information, but it is also used as a fear-inducing mechanism with the purpose of twisting the truth and manipulating people’s perception of reality. Watching T.V news, in particular, has had a mostly negative effect on society. These media platforms instill fear and paranoia while simultaneously feeding false information to the public, and making them more ignorant by hindering their ability to think critically. …show more content…

In other words, heavy television viewers tend to develop an exaggerated belief that the world is a scary place, also known as ‘mean world syndrome’. This term explains a phenomenon where violence and crime-related content in media (entertainment or news) make viewers believe that the world we live in is more dangerous than it actually is. The cultivation theory argues that the more people watch television, the more it shapes their perception of reality. Therefore, the more media an individual consumes, the more crime they believe to be present. (Griffin, Ledbetter & Sparks,

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