Issue38 [大杀四方第三次作业]

yanglcUID: 2265921

TOPIC: ISSUE38 - "In the age of television, reading books is not as important as it once was. People can learn as much by watching television as they can by reading books."
WORDS: 564          TIME: AM 01:14:40          DATE: 2007-1-29

In the age of television, with the amazing development of technology and mass media, there are fewer and fewer people fond of reading books and more and more people enjoying watching television. Notwithstanding, this phenomenal does not mean that reading books is not as important as it once was-- actually it is not as popular as it was, neither the phenomenal indicate that people can learn as much by watching television as they can by reading books.

Why television is so popular, especially after the 1960s, when television has been invented decades of years? The reason is that television can supply instant and synchronous images of incident of the world, such as the dispute for the 1964's president between Nixon and Kennedy, Dr. Martin Luther King's world-famous speech and the shot on President Kennedy. People can get visual information at the time things happen, not just listening on the radio or reading newspaper the next day, and as scientists point out, vision brings much more information with it than sound and word. To some sports fans, television means that they can watch games in their convenient house and need not go to the stadium, which is neither near at blocks nor in another country. Furthermore, TV is a better means of entertainment than the books. Such popular programs as talk show, live concert, TV soap opera and so-called "Truman show" are appreciated by the public. There is nowhere more true than on the assertion that TV is one of the most important creations in the twentieth century.

However, as to the education and self-improvement, reading books can not be replaced by watching TV. First, books are easy to take with and you choose the topic and style of books. You can read a book on a train, at the coffee or at the interval of a conference. Contrarily, you can not get a TV everywhere and in most of time, you cannot turn the public TV to your favorite channel, on which there may be a boring program or Ads sometimes. This advantage of reading books facilitate people's knowledge attainment at anytime and anywhere they want.

Second, more essentials of human's wisdom are printed in the books than on the television. It is books that the main approach from which the students learn the principle of the university, morality, literature and history. Television only plays an assistant role at school. If we make a program of calculus or physics and put it on a public channel or commercial one, how many people will watch the program, after their hard work? Can we get profit or the investment back at best?

Thirdly, books can provoke imagination of human beings while TV makes brains lazy. When you read a line of beautiful words, you can imagine the scene the words build actively and different people in different place at different time get various images.  And reading books enhances people's ability of deduction and logic especially when you read detective novels. On the other hand, watching television makes a health person sit still on a couch, eat junk food, not think anything but accept the content of TV passively, and become a "couch potato" eventually.

To sum up, though increasing people like watching TV and pay less and less time on reading, the importance of reading books is not diminished and people can get more benefit from books than television.