Over ninety-nine percent of Americans have this addictive device in their home. It is destroying family life and education. It even alters your brain activity. It is….the television. Parents need to limit, maybe even completely eliminate their children’s TV time.
When the average American kid comes home from school, what’s the first thing that comes to their mind? I wonder what’s on TV. Usually this is all they ever think about. When asked to choose between watching television and spending time with their parents, fifty-four percent of 4-6 year olds preferred sitting on their butts glued to the tube. Television is destroying family life. What ever happened to having a nice dinner at the table with each member of the family? Over 66% of American families watch TV while eating dinner. And people wonder why they have trouble communicating with their children. If parents drew the line at 30 minutes of television a day, imagine the positive effects it would have on the American family.

Television is even effecting education. Instead of curling up with a good book kids would rather snuggle up to an addictive piece of plastic. Choosing to watch instead of read can have serious consequences. Children who are heavy TV viewers (over 3 hours per day), show the greatest decline in reading ability (Reinking & Wu, 1990). Children also spend four times as many hours each week watching TV than doing homework. Television is poisoning the minds of the children that will one day run this country.

When I say kids are addicted to the TV, I’m not kidding. Watching television can and will cause a physical addiction. When you watch television, your brain switches from the left side to the right. When the right side of your brain is active, it causes it to release endorphins (chemicals which are like sedatives for the brain). The endorphins that are released have similar properties to heroin. I repeat, HEROIN! If you want your kids to be addicted to the TV like people are addicted to drugs, you go right ahead and let them watch. Personally, I’d rather not be hooked to something that has no value whatsoever, and gives me nothing but a few hours of pointless entertainment.

There is but one cure for this addiction that is contaminating the minds of children all around the world. Turn it off! Do something for once! Go for a walk, play some basketball, read a book. Anything but satisfy that craving to watch those Simpsons reruns, again. If parents didn’t always look to the TV to distract their children for a while, they too, would benefit. Their children would actually want to spend time with them. They would get better grades. And of course they wouldn’t be slaves to the magic box. The time to act is now. If we wait any longer to solve this problem it might be too late. Turn off your TV and turn on your life.