Issue38 [jet]

jinluevaUID: 2390375

MY Issue 38
Date: 2008-2-26
Time: 50minutes
Words: 660

With the rapid growth of technology and its application, it is undoubtedly that the means or even custom of learning changed considerably. The most apparent trend, as the author suggests, is the emerging and spread of the use of televisions, as a new medium, for both teaching and studying in and out off campus. Nevertheless, influential and informative though the television is, the opinion that through programs on TV set, people can learn as much as they can by reading books is questionable, in terms of the different functions these two means have.

Admittedly, television, with its springing up in almost every corner of the world, could bring huge amount and extensive scope of information to our daily life out off campus. With your TV set turning on, you never need to sit seriously behind the desk and read to gain the descriptions of outdoor world. While doing your housework, you may get to know the exotic creatures and splendid landscape of Africa through the program of National Geographic; or you are taught about what hides in the Pyramid in Egypt thousands of years ago by Discovery films. Thanks to the prevalence of televisions, presently the free access of the mysterious ancient civilizations and the great natures is available to us, and the process of getting knowledge becomes of interest and attractiveness.  

Now we may ask: it the power of television in dissemination of information so strong that it could supplant the role played by books in campus? To get the answer, we simply need to take a look at the study of university students. Even armed with televisions in their classrooms as well as homes, professors still assign them reading homework and point textbooks as supplement to the notes they hand out in class. Students seldom receive projects on televisions unless their majors are relating to media. In the near future, it is unlikely that televisions can make the status of books in stake in terms of learning.

One of the major advantages books enjoy over televisions is in their different methods of learning. When studying with televisions, though it is more convenient and vivid, the learners do nothing more than watching, hearing and accepting the ideas conveyed to them. In other words, they are passive. Yet doing researches with books, we have to make out our own plans and choices. What references worth our time and energy? In what process are we going to finish them? Take students in economics for example, those who are in favor of free market could pick up works by Adam Smith, or Friedman, while those seeking for the solution of market inefficiency can read Keynes and Tirole. In this process of study, we are the owners and leaders of the subjests, directions as well as preference, and eventually it will help us to form our own style and organization of our knowledge.

What is more, in terms of the further education and research, which requires our own thoughts and contributions to the already known sciences, the limitations of televisions are more obvious. In the first place, televisions, as a type of mass media, can hardly help in the abstract and abstruse thinking. It is advisable to illustrate our political viewpoints in television, yet when it comes to the underlying political philosophy such as the social contract of Locke, or the principles of justice of Rawls could not be fully explained on TV. Similarly, the complexity and logic of theories of nature sciences, such as theory of relativity and quantum, can only be developed clearly by books. Only through the reading and meanwhile, analysis of correlating books can we get the essence of the most advanced or sophisticated thoughts in the realm of academia.

In sum, the appearance of televisions in the process of spread of knowledge should be welcomed, since programs on TV could inspire the interest and desires of people, especially children, for learning. Nevertheless, the author's statement overrates the significance of televisions and ignores the special yet irreplaceable functions of books.