Groucho Marx Views On Television And Its Effects On Society

Julius Henry "Groucho" Marx, a famous comedian, once said , “I find television very educating. Every time somebody turns on the set, I go into the other room and read a book.” Groucho Marx was , of course, part of the many who thought that television is not useful to human beings in any manner. However, Groucho Marx and many others are definitely wrong. By providing programs on education, entertainment, and news, television has challenged widely shared values of people like Groucho Marx who believed that television is useless and has no purpose. Today, many citizens of the world utilize television for the purpose of educating themselves, for the purpose of obtaining knowledge about current events and for the purpose of recreation. When I was 12 years old, my late grandfather said to me, “ Don’t ever watch TV! There are no educational channels or programs on TV that will help you become a better student.” I wanted to prove him wrong. In order to do so, I showed him the Discovery channel, which is known for broadcasting useful programs in the area
of natural science and historical science. In order to strengthen my point, I made sure he watched a program in the Discovery channel titled “Storm Chasers”. After watching that program, he concluded that it’s a useful program that can help people strengthen their education about tornadoes. Apart from just the Discovery channel, I also made sure he watched glimpses of the Public Broadcasting Station(PBS) channel which broadcasts educational programs for kids like Sesame Street and History channel which broadcasts programs that help people strengthen their knowledge about events of the past. He was surprised to see that there are so many educational programs on television that can be beneficial for not only students but everyone else. Hence, television proves to be invention that challenged widely shared views of many personnel like my grandfather who had nothing positive to say about TV. The common misconception that many people had in the past and tend to have even today is that news can only be obtained by newspapers and radio. Television is an invention that widely challenges shared values of these people as it is home to many news channels that give valuable information about what’s going on. There are countless number of news channels in the world today. Few examples of news channels to my knowledge include CNN International, CNN IBN, CNBC, TV9 Telugu, Sakshi TV,BBC News, and Fox News. Most of the news channels perform an excellent job in delivering news about what’s going on not only in the neighborhood, but also the world. By being source of transmission for many news channels, television convinces that it is an invention that questioned the shared values of many people who thought that news can only be obtained from the newspapers and radio. There are also a few who claimed that television does not offer any sort of worthwhile entertainment for people.
However, their claims are wrong. Television denounced their widely shared values by acting as a medium for many entertainment and recreational based channels. Few recreational based channels include Food Network, Travel Channel, NBC 12, and ABC. People can watch these channels for the purpose of learning past-time skills, for the purpose of finding out about worthwhile places to visit in the world, and also for the purpose of watching movies. Few entertainment based channels are Cartoon Network and Disney Channel. People can watch these channels in order to obtain entertainment and also to relax. By being home to many recreational and entertainment channels, television challenged widely shared values of people who believed that television cannot be used for productive recreational use and for
relaxation. People who are against television often make claims that television, although useful, can be misused in several manners. Few claims that people compose are that television has some programs that may expose kids to violence. Few individuals may also assert that there are programs that can disclose inappropriate sexual content to children. Apart from these assertions, many people also assert that there is a danger due to the fact that kids spend more time watching television, which may cause strain to eyes. Many individuals use these claims to support their negative wide shared values about television. Although these are all great claims, it must be said that they are not strong enough. It’s a matter of personal preference if kid wants to spend more time on TV or not. Also, it is the parent’s responsibility to make sure that kid is not watching sexual or violent content. Every technology has a downside to it, but it is one’s responsibility to make sure that he/she uses it for the purpose intended. In conclusion, television is an invention that challenged widely shared values of many individuals. TV has questioned those who rationalized that one can’t obtain education from TV by being home to educational based channels. TV has also questioned those who reasoned that one can obtain news only from newspapers and radio by being home to tons of news channels. Finally, TV has also challenged those who claimed that TV doesn’t offer worthwhile entertainment for people by being home to many recreation-based and entertainment-based channels. By challenging values of people, television has brought a significant change as now people have an alternative apart from books that they can use to obtain education, people have an alternative apart from newspaper, journals, and radio that they can use to obtain knowledge about current events, and people also have an alternative in order to obtain entertainment. Television cannot be called “useless chatterbox” anymore!

-