The interaction between any device or modern amenity and society is the most significant point. So it is with the television. It is an audio-visual electronic device of the modern age. It has invested life with a new charm that can never be dismissed summarily as harmful.
To be very plain no scientific thing is, in itself, harmful, expect, of course, the lethal weapons. The television today has become a domestic commodity. Almost every house owns it. It is a source of entertainment in hotels, restaurants, deluxe-coaches, planes and what not. The cinema caters to the taste of the people at limited hours and in limited things. But the TV with its far-flung multiple channels have a wild variety of things and programmes to cater.
The chief issue is how to use the television. Ours is a permissive society, although still in a considerable section of our globe men live primitive lives. It can be proved that the utility of the television lies in its proper use. Otherwise, like Ms Shelley’s Frankenstein, it harms the master that operates. Take the case of its commercialization in our country. The channels make a reckless display of nude or semi-nude films, crime and paranoiac behaviour. As a result the colleges and now even the schools and their hostels teem with cases of sexual violence and the society at large has become a prey to interchanging wives and promiscuity. The West, which fell prey to it now confronts the fatal disease called AIDS. Even our own country is today a victim of it. Doubtless, the TV, more than the cinema, is accountable for it, for it administers the poison to the milling millions day in and out. In consequence of the heavy toll of the disease, the counter wave sets in. It is again the TV that comes to the rescue. The global investigations, conference of doctor, findings and remedies are all disseminated to the public through the TV.
Naturally, in the ultimate analysis, it is the role of man that comes foremost. The TV has a powerful educative value, the quiz contests, the merits of proper child-care, intelligent programmes to create awareness of family control among the illiterate and many other such educative programmes are being done though the TV to good effect.
The television is usually a vicarious means of entertainment. In general it shuts our mind out. We are treated to wide variety of programmes. We sit through them – religious, secular and vulgar, with our children unconcerned at how it militates against our culture. Few of us, indeed, think of the harmful effects of such programmes. Had it been a bad film on the cinema screen, perhaps we would check our wards from going to it. But at home everything is homely and we suffer from no hesitation in passing our time over such filthy scenes with our wards.
Another powerful asset of the television, today, is its exposure impact. Sidhi Baat or say Jan Adalat interviews of defamed politicians with unforgiving critics like Prabhu Chawla, Nalini Singh invariably has greater impact. Reading of scandals in the newspaper or hearing of them in the radios do not shame the wrong doers to that extent as when he is conscious that his scandals and sulking replies are being viewed by millions of viewers is his own country as well as abroad.
To cut a long story short, the television is an indispensable gift of our age. It is alleged that too much of exposure to the screen is likely to damage our eyes. But a controlled use of it and wholesome practices like splashing the eyes with water after seeing the programme would easily set off the little demerit that it has.